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JNANA YOGA 



VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 



LECTURES 



SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 



ON 



jnAna yoga 



* 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE VEDANTA SOCIETY 
New York 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two C0PI68 Received 

JUN. 27 1902 

Copyright entry 
CLASS (X^ XXc. No. 

^ / 5 / 3 

COPY A. 



^$' 



^ 






Copyright, 1902 

BY 

SWAMI ABHEDANANDA 



New York 

Kay Printing House 

66-68 Centre St. 



PREFACE 

Ved^nta Philosophy regards the religious tenden- 
cies of mankind as being of four main divisions, the 
dividing lines not being necessarily sharply defined, 
for more than one of these tendencies may be found 
in one individual. Broadly speaking, there is a large 
class of men who seek to express their religious ideas 
through ethical work, through constant effort to help 
and uplift their fellow-men. Then there are others 
of a strongly devotional character, who find in love 
and worship the satisfaction of their religious needs. 
Others again, of more mystical nature, prefer to realize 
their ideals through concentration and meditation. 
Lastly, there is a class of men of strongly analytical 
natures who must have the sanction of logic and 
reason for every belief and who therefore take the 
path of philosophy and discrimination. 

The books by Swami Vivekananda already published 
have been intended to meet the inquiries of the first 
three classes of men. The present work is adapted for 
the last class, the philosophers. Jnana Yoga is, as 
its name implies, the yoga, or method, of realizing 
our divine nature through wisdom {Jnana). Wis- 

7 



8 J NAN A YOGA 

dom is not knowledge in its ordinary sense, although 
it includes it. It is that higher knowledge which is 
self-illumination. This is equally the goal of every 
yoga, or method, the difference lying only in the path 
chosen for reaching that goal. 

The present volume consists chiefly of lectures 
which were delivered in London, England. Two were 
given in India, and are consequently new both in 
England and in this country. The lectures deal with 
the teachings of the Upanishads, which contain the 
essence of Vedanta. Some of these Upanishads are 
among the most ancient of the Hindu Scriptures, and 
show a wonderful insight into the great truths under- 
lying all religious aspiration. It is because Vedanta 
is a religion of principles, not of external authority, 
that the late Professor Max Miiller said of it : "Vedanta 
has room for almost every religion; nay, it embraces 
them all." 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Song of the Sannyasin .... 9 

11. The Necessity of Religion 12 

III. The Real Nature of Man 28 

IV. Maya and Illusion 51 

V. Maya and the Evolution of the Con- 
ception OF God 74 

VI. Maya and Freedom 91 

VII. The Absolute and Manifestation . . 106 

VIII. Unity in Diversity 124 

IX. God in Everything 142 

X. Realization 156 

XL The Freedom of the Soul 183 

XII. Practical Vedanta, Part i 201 

XIII. Practical Vedanta^ Part ii 222 

XIV. Practical Vedanta, Part ili 245 

XV. Practical Vedanta, Part iv. . . . . 261 

XVI. Vedanta in All Its Phases .... 283 
XVII. Vedanta 310 



JNANA YOGA 



THE SONG OF THE SANNYASIN 

Wake up the note ! The song that had its birth 
Far off, where worldly taint could never reach; 
In mountain caves, and glades of forest deep, 
Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame 
Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream 
Of knowledge, truth, and bliss that follows both. 
Sing high that note, Sannyasin bold ! Say — 

''Om tat sat, Om!" 

Strike off thy fetters ! Bonds that bind thee down, 
Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore; 
Love, hate — good, bad — and all the dual throng. 
Know slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; 
For fetters tho' of gold, are not less strong to bind. 
Then off with them Sannyasin bold ! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

Let darkness go; the will-o'-the-wisp that leads 
With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom. 
This thirst for life, for ever quench ; it drags, 
From birth to death and death to birth, the soul. 
He conquers all who conquers self. Know this 
And never yield, Sannyasin bold! Say — 



'Om tat sat, Omf 



9 



lO J NANA YOGA 

**Who sows must reap," they say, "and cause must bring 
The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none 
Escape the law. But whoso wears a form 
Must wear the chain." Too true, but far beyond 
Both name and form is Atman, ever free. 
Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

They know not truth, who dream such vacant dreams 

As father, mother, children, wife and friend. 

The sexless Self! Whose father He? Whose child? 

Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One? 

The Self is all in all, naught else exists; 

And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

There is but One— The Free— The Knower— Self I 
Without a name, without a form or stain; 
In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream. 
The Witness, He appears as nature, soul. 
Know thou art That, Sannyasin! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world 
Nor that, can give. In books and temples vain 
Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds 
The rope that drags thee on. Then, cease lament. 
Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold ! Say — 

"Om tat sat, OniV 

Say — "Peace to all ; from me no danger be 

To aught that lives ; in those that dwell on high, 

In those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all ! 

All life, both here and there, do I renounce, 

And heav'ns, earths and hells ; all hopes and fears." 

Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold ! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!** 



THE SONG OF THE SANNYASIN II 

Heed then no more how body lives or goes, 

Its task is done. Let Karma float it down, 

Let one put garlands on, another kick 

This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be 

Where praiser, praised — and blamer, blamed — are one. 

Thus be thou calm, Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed 
Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman 
As his wife can ever perfect be; 
Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he 
Whom anger chains, can pass thro' Maya's gates. 
So, give these up, Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend? 
The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed; and food 
What chance may bring, well cooked or ill, judge not. 
No food or drink can taint that noble self 
Which knows itself. Like rolling river, be 
Thou ever free, Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

Few only know the truth. The rest will hate 
And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed. 
Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help 
Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without 
The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go 
Beyond them both Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 

Thus day to day, till Karma's powers spent 
Release the soul for ever. No more is birth 
Nor I, nor thou, nor god, nor man. The "I" 
Has all become, the all is "I," and bliss. 
Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say — 

"Om tat sat, Om!" 



II 

THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION 

Of all the forces that have worked and are still 
working, to mould the destinies of the human race, 
none, certainly, is more potent than that, the manifes- 
tation of which we call religion. All social organiza- 
tions have as a background, somewhere, the workings 
of that peculiar force, and the greatest cohesive im- 
pulse ever brought into play amongst human units has 
been derived from this power of religion. It is obvious 
to all of us, that in very many cases the bonds of 
religion have proved stronger than the bonds of race, 
of climate, or even of descent. It is a well known 
fact that persons worshipping the same God, believing 
in the same leligion, have stood by each other, with 
much greater strength and constancy than people of 
merely the same descent, or even than brothers. Vari- 
ous attempts have been made to trace the beginnings 
of religion. In all the ancient religions which have 
come down to us at the present day we find one claim 
made — that they are all supernatural ; that their genesis 
is not, as it were, in the human brain, but that they 
have originated somewhere outside of it. 

Two theories have gained some acceptance amongst 
modern scholars. One is the spirit theory of religion, 
the other the evolution of the Infinite. One party 

12 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION 1 3 

maintains that ancestor worship is the beginning of 
religious ideas; the other that reHgion originates in 
the personification of the powers of nature. Man 
wants to keep up the memory of his dead relatives, 
and thinks they are living even when the body has 
been dissolved, and he wants to place food for them 
and, in a certain sense, to worship them. Out of that 
came the growth we call religion. Studying the 
ancient religions of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chi- 
nese, and many other races in America and elsewhere, 
we find very clear traces of this ancestor worship 
being the beginning of religion. With the ancient 
Egyptians the first idea of the soul was that of a 
double. This physical man contained in it another 
being very similar to it, and when a man died this 
double went out of the body and yet lived on. But 
the life of the double lasted only as long as the dead 
body remained intact, and that is why we find among 
the Egyptians so much solicitude to keep the body 
intact. That is why they built those huge pyramids in 
which they preserved bodies. For, if any portion of 
the external body was hurt, just so would the double 
be hurt. This is clearly ancestor worship. With the 
ancient Babylonians we find the same idea of the 
double, but with a variation. The double lost all sense 
of love; it frightened the living to give it food and 
drink, and to help it in various ways. It even lost all 
affection for its own children, its own wife or daugh- 
ter. Am.ong the ancient Hindus, also, we find traces 
of this ancestor worship. Among the Chinese the 
basis of their religion may also be said to be clearly 
ancestor worship, and it still permeates the length and 



14 J NANA YOGA 

breadth of that vast country. In fact the only reUgion 
that can really be said to flourish in China is that of 
ancestor worship. Thus it seems on the one hand a 
very good position is made out for those who hold to 
the theory of ancestor worship as the beginning of 
religion. 

On the other hand there are scholars who go back 
to ancient Aryan literature. Although in India we 
find proofs of ancestor worship everywhere, yet in the 
oldest records there is no trace of it whatsoever. In 
the Rig Veda Samhita, the most ancient record of the 
Aryan race, we do not find any trace of it at all. 
Modern scholars think it is the worship of nature that 
they find there. The human mind seems to struggle 
to get a peep behind the scenes. The dawn, the even- 
ing, the hurricane, the stupendous and gigantic forces 
of nature, its beauties, these have exercised the human 
mind, and it aspires to go beyond, to understand some- 
thing about them. In the struggle they endow these 
phenomena with personal attributes, giving them souls 
and bodies, sometimes beautiful, sometimes transcen- 
dent. Every attempt ends by these phenomena becom- 
ing abstractions whether personalized or not. So also 
it is found with the ancient Greeks; their whole 
mythology is simply this abstracted nature worship. 
So also with the ancient Germans, the Scandinavians, 
and all the other Aryan races. Thus, on this side too 
a very strong case has been made out that religion has 
its origin in the personification of the powers of 
nature. 

These two views, though they seem to be contra- 
dictory, can be reconciled on a third basis, which to 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION 1$ 

my mind is the real germ of religion, and that I pro- 
pose to call the struggle to transcend the limitations of 
the senses. Either man goes to seek for the spirits 
of his ancestors, or the spirits of the dead, or he wants 
to get a glimpse of what there is after the body is 
dissolved, or he desires to understand the power 
working behind the stupendous phenomena of nature. 
Whichever of these is the case, one thing is centain, 
that he is trying to transcend the limitations of the 
senses. He cannot remain satisfied with his senses; 
he wants to go beyond them. The explanation need 
not be mysterious. To me it seems very natural that 
the first glimpse of religion should come through 
dreams. The first idea of immortality man must get 
through dreams. Is not the dream state a most won- 
derful state? We know that children and untutored 
minds find very little difference between dreaming 
and their waking state. What can be more natural 
than that they find, as natural logic, that even during 
the sleep state, when the body is apparently dead, the 
mind goes on with all its intricate workings? What 
wonder that men will at once come to the conclusion 
that when this body is dissolved for ever the same 
working will go on? This, to my mind, would be a 
more natural explanation of the supernatural, and 
through this dream idea the human mind rises to 
higher and higher concepts. Of course in time the 
vast majority of mankind found out that these dreams 
were not verified by their awakened states, and that 
during the dream state it is not that man has a fresh 
existence, but simply that he recapitulates the experi- 
ences of the awakened state. 



l6 J NANA YOGA 

But by this time the search had begun, and the 
search was inward, and they continued to inquire more 
deeply into the different stages of the mind, and dis- 
covered higher states than either the waking or dream- 
ing. This state of things we find in all the organized 
religions of the world, called either a state of ecstasy, 
or inspiration. In all the organized religions, their 
founders, prophets and messengers are declared to 
have gone into states of mind which were neither 
waking nor sleeping, but states in which they came 
face to face with a new series of facts, those relating 
to what is called the spiritual kingdom. They real- 
ized things there in a much more intense sense than 
we realize facts around us in our waking state. This 
we find in all the existing religions. Take, for in- 
stance, the religions of the Brahmans. The Vedas are 
said to be written by Rishis. These Rishis were sages 
who realized certain facts. The exact definition of 
the Sanskrit word is "The Seers of the Mantrams" — 
of the thoughts conveyed in the Vedic Hymns. These 
men declared that they had realized — sensed, if that 
word can be used with regard to the supersensuous — 
certain facts, and these facts they proceeded to put on 
record. We find the same thing declared among both 
the Jews and the Christians. 

Some exception may be taken in the case of the 
Buddhists as represented by the Southern sect. It 
may be asked — if the Buddhists do not believe in any 
God, or a soul, how can their religion be derived from 
this supersensuous state of existence? The answer 
to this is, that even the Buddhists find an eternal 
moral law, and that moral law was not reasoned out 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION I7 

in our sense of the word, but Buddha found it, discov- 
ered it, in a supersensuous state. Those of you who 
have studied the life of Buddha, even as shortly given 
in that beautiful poem "The Light of Asia," may 
remember that Buddha is represented as sitting under 
the Bo-tree until he had reached the supersensuous 
state of mind. All his teachings came from this, and 
not from intellectual cogitations. 

Thus, here is a tremendous statement made by all 
religions, that this human mind, at certain moments, 
transcends not only the limitations of the senses, but 
also the power of reasoning. It then comes face to 
face with facts which it could never have sensed, 
could never have reasoned out. These facts are the 
basis of all the religions of the world. Of course we 
have the right to challenge these facts, to put them to 
the test of reason, nevertheless, all the existing 
religions of the world claim for the human mind this 
peculiar power of transcending the limits of the senses, 
and the limits of reason; and this power they put 
forward as a statement of fact. 

Apart from the consideration of the question how 
far these facts claimed by religions are true, we find 
one characteristic common to them all. They are all 
abstractions as contrasted with the concrete discov- 
eries of physics, for instance; and in all the highly 
organized religions they take the purest form of Unit 
Abstraction, either in the form of an Abstracted 
Presence, as an Omnipresent Being, as an Abstract 
Personality, called God, as a Moral Law, or in the 
form of an Abstract Essence underlying every exist- 
ence. In modern times, too, the attempts made to 



l8 J NANA YOGA 

preach religions without appeaUng to the supersen*. 
suous state of the mind, have had to take up the old 
abstractions of the Ancients, and put different names 
to them as ''Moral Law," the ''Ideal Unity," and so 
forth, thus showing that these abstractions are not 
in the senses. None of us have yet seen an Ideal 
Human Being, and yet we are told to believe in an 
Ideal Human Being. None of us have yet seen an 
ideally perfect man, and yet without that ideal we 
cannot progress. Thus, this one fact stands out from 
all these different religions, that there is an Ideal Unit 
Abstraction, and this is either put before us in the 
form of a Person, or as an Impersonal Being, or as 
Law, or a Presence, or an Essence. We are always 
struggling to raise ourselves up to that ideal. Every 
human being whosoever and wheresoever he may be, 
has an ideal of infinite power. Every human being 
has an ideal of infinite pleasure. Most of the works 
that we find around us, the activities displayed every- 
where, are due to the struggle for this infinite power, 
or this infinite pleasure. But a few quickly discover 
that although they are struggling for infinite power, 
it is not through the senses that it can be reached. 
They find out very soon that that infinite pleasure 
is not to be got through the senses, or, in other words, 
the senses are too limited, and the body is too limited 
to express the Infinite. To manifest the Infinite 
through the finite is impossible, and, sooner or later, 
man learns to give up the attempt to express the 
Infinite through the finite. This giving up, this renun- 
ciation of the attempt, is the background of ethics. 
Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION I9 

stand. There never was an ethical code preached 
which had not renunciation for its basis. 

Ethics always says : "Not I, but thou." Its motto 
is, "Not self, but non-self." The vain ideas of indi- 
vidualism to which man clings when he is trying to 
find that Infinite Power, or that Infinite Pleasure 
through the senses, have to be given up, say the laws 
of ethics. You have to put yourself last, and others 
before you. The senses say, "Myself first." Ethics 
says, "I must hold myself last." Thus, all codes of 
ethics are based upon this renunciation ; destruction, 
not construction, of the individual on the material 
plane. That Infinite will never find expression upon 
the material plane, nor is it possible or thinkable. 

So, man had to give up the plane of matter, and 
rise to other spheres to seek a deeper expression of 
that Infinite. In this way the various ethical laws 
are being moulded, but all have that one central idea, 
eternal self-abnegation. Perfect self-annihilation is 
the ideal of ethics. People are startled if they are 
asked not to think of their individualities. Every- 
body seems so very much afraid of losing what he 
calls his individuality. At the same time, the same 
men would declare the highest ideals of ethics to be 
right; never for a moment thinking that the scope, 
the goal, the idea of all ethics is destruction of the 
individual, and not the building up of the individual. 

Utilitarian standards cannot explain the ethical rela- 
tions of men; for, in the first place we cannot derive 
any ethical laws from considerations of utility. With- 
out this supernatural sanction, as it is called, or the 
perception of the super-conscious, as I prefer to term 



20 J NANA YOGA 

it, there can be no ethics. Without this struggle 
towards the Infinite there can be no ideal. Any sys- 
tem that wants to bind men down within the limits 
of their own societies would not be able to find an 
explanation for the ethical laws of mankind. The 
Utilitarian wants us to give up all this struggle after 
the Infinite, all this going to the Supersensuous, as 
impracticable and absurd, and, in the same breath, 
asks us to take up ethics, and do good to society. 
Why should we do good ? Doing good is a secondary 
consideration. We must have an ideal. Ethics itself 
is not the end, but the means to the end. If the end 
is not there why should we be ethical? W^hy should 
1 do good to other men, and not injure them? If 
happiness be the goal of mankind, why should I not 
make myself happy and others unhappy? What pre- 
vents me? In the second place, the basis of utility 
is too narrow. All these forms and methods are 
derived from society as it exists, but what right has 
the Utilitarian to assume that society is eternal? 
Society did not exist ages ago, possibly will not exist 
ages hence. Most probably it is one of the passing 
stages through which we are going towards a higher 
evolution, and any law that is derived from society 
alone cannot be eternal, cannot cover the whole ground 
of man's nature. At best, therefore. Utilitarian 
theories can only work under present social condi- 
tions. Beyond that, they have no value. But a mor- 
ality, an ethical code derived from religion and spirit- 
uality, has the whole of infinite man for its scope. It 
takes up the individual but its relations are to the 
Infinite, and it takes up society also — because society 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION 21 

is nothing but numbers of these individuals grouped 
together — and applying to the individual and his 
eternal relations, it must necessarily apply to the 
whole of society, in whatever condition it may be at 
any given time. Thus we see that there is always the 
necessity of spiritual religion for mankind. Man can- 
not always think of matter, however pleasurable it 
may be. 

It has been said that too much attention to things 
spiritual disturbs our practical relations in this world. 
As long ago as the days of the Chinese sage Con- 
fucius it was said : "Let us take care of this world, 
and then, when we have finished with this world, we 
will take care of other worlds." It is all very well 
that we should take care of this world and let the 
other go, but though too much attention to the spirit- 
ual may hurt a little our practical relations, yet too 
much attention to the so-called practical hurts us here 
and hereafter. It makes us materialistic. For man 
is not to regard Nature as his goal, but something 
higher than Nature. 

Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above 
Nature, and this nature is both internal and external. 
Not only does nature comprise the laws that govern 
the particles of matter outside us and in our bodies, 
but there is the more subtle nature inside us, which 
is, in fact, the motive power which is governing the 
external and the internal nature. It is good and very 
grand to conquer external nature, but grander still 
to conquer the internal nature of man. It is grand 
and good to know the laws that govern the stars and 
planets ; it is infinitely grander and better to know the 



22 JNANA YOGA 

laws that govern the passions, the feelings, the will 
of mankind. This conquering of the inner man, 
understanding the secrets of the subtle workings that 
are within the human mind, and knowing its wonder- 
ful secrets, belong entirely to religion. Human nature 
— ^the ordinary human nature, I mean — wants to see 
big material facts. Ordinary mankind cannot under- 
stand anything that is subtle. Well has it been said 
that mobs would run after a lion that could kill a 
thousand lambs, and never for a moment think that 
it is death unto the lambs, although it may be a mo- 
mentary triumph for the lion, because in that the mob 
finds the greatest manifestation of physical strength. 
Thus with the ordinary run of mankind, they under- 
stand and find pleasure in everything that is external ; 
but in every society there is a section whose pleasures 
are not in the senses, but beyond, and who now and 
then catch glimpses of something higher than matter, 
and want to struggle thither. And if we read the 
histories of nations between the lines we shall always 
find that the rise of a nation comes with an increase 
in the number of such men in society; and the fall 
begins when this pursuit after the Infinite, however 
vain utilitarians may call it, has ceased. That is to 
say, the mainspring of the strength of every race lies 
in the spirituality manifested in religion, and the 
death of that race will begin the day that spirituality 
wanes and materialism begins. 

Thus, apart from the solid facts and truths that we 
may learn from religion, apart from the comforts that 
we may gain therefrom, religion itself, as a science, 
as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION 23 

the human mind can have. This pursuit of the Infin- 
ite, this struggle to grasp the Infinite, this effort to 
get beyond the Hmitations of the senses, out of matter, 
as it were, and to evolve the spiritual man, instead 
of filling the mind with low, narrow and little ideals ; 
this striving day and night to make the Infinite one 
with our being — this struggle itself is the grandest 
and most glorious that man can make. Some persons 
find the greatest pleasure in eating. We have no 
right to say they should not. Others find the greatest 
pleasure in possessing certain things. We have no 
right to say they should not. But they also have no 
right to say "no" to the man who finds his highest 
pleasure in spiritual thought. The lower the organi- 
zation the more is the pleasure in the senses. Very 
few men can eat a meal with the same gusto that a 
dog, or a wolf can. But all the pleasures of the dog 
or the wolf have gone, as it were, into the senses, 
into that eating. The lower types of humanity in all 
nations find more pleasure in the senses, while the 
cultured and the educated find more in thought, in 
philosophy, in the arts and sciences. Spiritual thought 
is a still higher plane. The subject being infinite, 
that plane is the highest, and the pleasure there is the 
highest for tliose who appreciate it. So, even on the 
utilitarian ground — that man is to seek for pleasure 
— he should cultivate religious thought, for that is the 
highest pleasure that exists. Thus religion as a study, 
seems to me to be absolutely necessary. W^e can see 
it in its effects. It is the greatest motive power that 
moves the human mind. No other ideal can put into 
us the same mass of energy as the spiritual. So far 



24 J NANA YOGA 

as human history goes, it is obvious to all of us that 
this has been the case, and its powers are not dead. 
I do not deny that men on simply utilitarian grounds 
can be very good and moral. There have been many 
great men in this world perfectly sound and moral 
and good simply on utilitarian grounds, but the world- 
movers, men who bring, as it were, a mass of mag- 
netism into the world, whose spirit works in hundreds 
and in thousands, whose life produces a halo around 
them wherever they go, igniting others with a spiritual 
fire — such men we always find had that spiritual back- 
ground. The motive power of their energy came 
from religion. Religion is the greatest motive power, 
to release that infinite energy which is the birthright 
and nature of every man. Nothing can compare with 
religion there. In building up character, in making 
for everything that is good and great, in bringing 
peace to others, and peace to one's own self, religion 
is the highest motive power, and religion ought to be 
studied therefore from that standpoint. Religion must 
be studied on a broader basis than formerly. All 
narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion have to go. 
All sect ideas and tribal or national ideas of religion 
must be given up. Each tribe or nation having its 
own particular God, and thinking that every other is 
wrong, is superstition that should belong to the past. 
All such ideas must be abandoned. 

As the human mind broadens, so its spiritual steps 
must broaden. The time has already come when a 
man cannot record a thought without it reaching to all 
corners of the earth; by merely physical means we 
have come into touch with the whole world — so the 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION 25 

future religions of the world have to become as univer- 
sal, as wide. 

The religious ideals of the future must embrace all 
that exists in the world that is good and great, and, 
at the same time, have infinite scope for future devel- 
opment. All that was good in the past must be 
preserved and kept; and yet the doors must be open 
for future addition to this already existing store. 
Religions must also be inclusive. Religions must not 
look down wath contempt upon people who have not 
the particular ideal of God which governs their spe- 
cial sect. In my life 1 have seen a great many spir- 
itual men, a great many sensible persons, who did not 
believe in God at all. That is to say, not in our sense 
of the word. Perhaps they understood God better 
than we can ever do. The Personal idea of God or 
the Impersonal, the Infinite, the Moral Law, or the 
Ideal Man — these all have to come under the definition 
of religion. And when religions have become thus 
broadened, their power for good will have increased 
a hundred times beyond the present. Religions, hav- 
ing tremendous power in them, have often done more 
injury to the world than good, simply on account of 
their narrowness, and limitations. 

Even at the present time we find many sects and 
societies, with almost the same ideas, fighting each 
other, because the one does not want to set forth those 
ideas in precisely the same way as the others. There- 
fore religions will have to broaden. Religious ideas 
will have to become universal, vast and infinite, and 
then alone we shall have the fullest play of religion, 
for the power of religion has only just begun in the 



26 J NANA YOGA 

world. It is sometimes said that religions are dying 
out, that spiritual ideas are dying out of the world. 
To me it seems that they have just begun. The power 
of religion, broadened and purified, is going to pene- 
trate every part of human life. So long as religion 
was in the hands of a chosen few, or of a body of 
priests, it was in the temples, it was in the churches, 
it was in books, in dogmas, in ceremonials, forms and 
rituals. When men have come to the real, universal, 
spiritual concept, then, and then alone, religion will 
become real and living; it will come into our very 
nature, live in every movement of the human being, 
it will penetrate every pore of society, and be infinite- 
ly more a power for good than it has ever been before. 

What is needed is a fellow-feeling between the 
different types of religion, seeing that they all stand 
or fall together; a fellow-feeling which springs from 
mutual esteem and mutual respect, and not the con- 
descending, patronizing, niggardly expression of good- 
will unfortunately in vogue at the present time with 
many. And above all, this is needed, between types 
of religious expression coming from the study of 
mental phenomena — unfortunately even now laying 
exclusive claim to the name of religion — and those 
expressions of religion whose heads are penetrating 
more and more into the secrets of heaven, though 
their feet are clinging to earth — the so-called material- 
istic sciences. 

To bring about this harmony both will have to make 
concessions, sometimes very large, nay, more, some- 
times painful ; but after all, each will find itself better 
for the sacrifice and more advanced in truth. And 



THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION" 2/ 

in the end, the knowledge which has its basis in 
changes in time, and that which is founded on changes 
in space will both meet and become one, where there 
is neither space nor time, where the mind cannot reach, 
nor the senses — the Absolute, the Infinite, the "One 
without a second." 



Ill 

THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 

Great is the tenacity with which man cHngs to the 
senses, yet however substantial he may think the exter- 
nal world in which he lives and moves, there come 
times in the lives of individuals and of races when, 
involuntarily they ask, 'Ts this real?" To the person 
who never finds a moment to question the credentials 
of his senses, whose every moment is occupied with 
some sort of sense-enjoyment — even to him death 
comes, and he also is compelled to ask: *Ts this real?" 
Religion begins with this question and ends with the 
answer. Even in the remote past where recorded his- 
tory cannot help us, in the mysterious light of mytholo- 
gy, back in the dim twilight of civilization, we find 
the same question was asked "What becomes of this? 
What is real ?" 

One of the most poetical of the Upanishads, the 
Katha Upanishad, begins with the inquiry : **When a 
man dies there is a contention. One party declares 
that he has gone forever, the other insists that he is 
still living. Which is true?" Various answers have 
been given. The whole sphere of metaphysics, phil- 
osophy and religion is really filled with various 
answers to this question. Attempts at the same time 
have been made to suppress it, to put a stop to this 

28 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 2g 

unrest of mind, which asks, "What beyond ? What is 
real ?" But so long as death remains all these attempts 
at suppression will uniformly prove to be unsuccess- 
ful. We may very easily talk about seeing nothing 
beyond and keeping all our hopes and aspirations con- 
fined to the present moment. We may struggle hard, 
and perhaps everything outside may help to keep us 
limited within the narrow bonds of the senses. The 
whole world may combine to prevent us from broad- 
ening out beyond the present; yet, so long as there 
is death the question must come again and again, **Is 
death the end of everythmg, of all these things to 
which we are clinging as if they were the most real 
of all realities, the most substantial of all substances ?" 
The world vanishes in a moment and is gone. Stand- 
ing on the brink of a precipice beyond which is the 
infinite yawning chasm, every mind, however har- 
dened, is bound to recoil, and ask, **Is this real?" 
The hopes of a lifetime, built little by little with all 
the energies of a great mind, vanish in one second. 
Are they real ? This question will have to be answered. 
Time will never lessen its power. As time rolls on 
it adds value to itself. Then there is the desire to be 
happy; we run after everything to make ourselves 
happy, we run after the senses, go on madly career- 
ing into the external world. The young man, with 
whom life is successful, if you ask him, declares that 
it is real ; he thinks it is all quite real. Perhaps the 
same man, growing old, and with fortune ever elud- 
ing him, will declare that it is fate. He finds at last 
that his desires cannot be fulfilled. Wherever he 
goes there is an adamantine wall beyond which he 



30 J NANA YOGA 

cannot pass. Every sense-activity results in a reac- 
tion. Everything is evanescent. Enjoyment, misery, 
luxury, wealth, power and poverty, even life itself are 
all evanescent. 

Two positions remain to mankind. One is to be- 
lieve with the Nihilists that all is nothing. We know 
nothing. We can never know anything either about 
the future, the past, or even of the present. For we 
must remember that he who denies the past and the 
future and wants to stick to the present is simply a" 
madman. One may as well deny the father and 
mother and assert the child. It would be equally logi- 
cal. To deny the past and future, the present must 
inevitably be denied also. This is one position, that 
of the Nihilists. I have never seen a man who could 
really become a Nihilist for one minute. It is very 
easy to talk. 

Then there is the other position, to seek for an 
explanation, to seek for the real, to discover in the 
midst of this eternally changing and evanescent world 
whatever is real. In this body which is an aggrega- 
tion of molecules of matter, is there anything which 
is real ? And this has been the search throughout the 
history of the human mind. In the very oldest times 
we often find glimpses of light coming into men's 
minds. We find man even then going a step beyond 
this body finding something which is not this external 
body, but which although very much like it, is not it, 
being much more complete, much more perfect, which 
remains even when this body is dissolved. We read in 
the hymns of the Rig Veda addressed to the God of 
Fire who is burning a dead body, "Carry him, Fire, 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 3 1 

in your arms gently, give him a perfect body, a bright 
body, carry him where the fathers Hve, where there 
is no more sorrow, where there is no more death." 
The same idea you will find present in every religion, 
and we get another idea with it. It is a curious fact 
that all religions, without one exception, hold that 
man is a degeneration of what he was, whether they 
clothe this in mythological words, or in the clear lan- 
guage of philosophy, or in the beautiful expressions 
of poetry. This is the one fact that comes out of 
every scripture and of every mythology, that the man 
that is, is a degeneration of what he was. This is the 
kernel of truth behind the story of Adam's fall in the 
Jewish scripture. This is again and again repeated 
in the scriptures of the Hindus ; the dream of a period 
which they call the age of truth, when no man died 
unless he wished to die ; when he could keep his body 
as long as he liked and his mind was pure and strong. 
There was no death at that time, and no evil and no 
misery; and the present age is a corruption of that 
state of perfection. Side by side with this we find the 
story of the deluge everywhere. That story itself is a 
proof that this present age is held to be a corruption 
of the former by every religion. It went on becom- 
ing more and more corrupt until the deluge swept 
away a large portion of mankind and again the ascend- 
ing series began. It is going up slowly again to reach 
once more that early state of purity. You are all 
aware of the story of the deluge in the Old Testa- 
ment. The same story was current among the ancient 
Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Chinese and the 
Hindus. Manu, a great ancient sage, was praying on 



32 JNANA YOGA 

the banks of the Ganges when a little minnow came 
to him for protection and he put it into a pot of water 
he had before him. "What do you want?" asked 
Manu. The little minnow declared he was pursued 
by a bigger fish and wanted protection. Manu car- 
ried the little fish to his home, and in the morning it 
had become as big as the pot, and said, "I cannot 
live in this pot any longer.'' Manu put him in a tank, 
and the next day he was as big as the tank and declared 
he could not live there any more. So Manu had to 
take him to a river, and in the morning the fish filled 
the river. Then Manu put him in the ocean, and he 
declared, "Manu, I am the creator of the Universe, I 
have taken this form to come and warn you that I 
will deluge the world. You build an ark, and in it put 
a pair of every kind of animal, and let your family 
enter the ark and there will come out of the deluge 
my horn. Fasten the ark to it, and when the deluge 
subsides come down and people the earth." So the 
world was deluged, and Manu saved his own family 
and a pair of every kind of animal and seeds of every 
plant, and when it subsided he came and peopled the 
world and we are all called "man" because we are 
progeny of Manu.* Now human language is the 
attempt to express the truth that is within. A little 
baby whose language itself consists of imperceptible, 
indistinct sounds, I am fully persuaded is attempting 
to express the highest philosophy, only the baby has 
not got the organs to express it, nor the means. The 
difference in the language between the highest phil- 
osophers and the utterances of babies is one of degree 
* Sanskrit root man, to think. 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 33 

and not of kind. What you call the most correct, sys- 
tematic, mathematical language of the present time and 
the hazy, mystical, mythological languages of the an- 
cients, differ only in degree. All of them have a grand 
idea behind, which is, as it were, struggling to express 
itself, and many times behind these ancient mytholo- 
gies are nuggets of truth, and many times, I am sorry 
to say, behind the fine, polished phrases of the modern, 
is arrant trash. So we need not throw overboard 
everything because it is clothed in mythology, because 
it does not fit in with the notions of Mr. So-and-So, or 
Mrs. So-and-So of modern times. If they laugh at 
religion because most religions declared that men must 
believe these things, because such and such a prophet 
has said them, they ought to laugh more at these 
moderns. In modern times if a man quotes a Moses, 
or a Buddha, or a Christ, he is laughed at; but let 
him give the name of a Huxley, a Tyndall, or a Dar- 
win, and it is swallowed without salt. "Huxley has 
said it," that is enough for many. We are free from 
superstitions indeed! That was a religious supersti- 
tion, and this is a scientific superstition; only in and 
through that superstition came life-jgiving lines of spir- 
ituality ; in and through this modern superstition come 
lust and greed. That superstition was worship of 
God, and this superstition is worship of filthy lucre, of 
fame or power. That is the difference. 

To turn back to our mythology, behind all these 
stories we find one idea standing supreme — that man 
is a degeneration of what he was. Coming to the pres- 
ent times, modern research seems to repudiate this 
position absolutely. Evolutionists seem to entirely 



34 J NANA YOGA 

contradict this assertion. According to them man is 
the evolution of the mollusc, and therefore what this 
mythology states cannot be true. There is in India, 
however, a mythology which is able to reconcile both 
these positions. The Indian mythology has a theory 
of cycles, that all progression is in the form of waves. 
Every wave is attended by a fall, and that by a rise the 
next moment, that by a fall in the next, and again 
another rise. The motion is in cycles. Certainly it 
is true even on the grounds of modern research, that 
man cannot be simply an evolution. Every evolution 
presupposes an involution. The modern scientific man 
will tell you that you can only get the amount of ener- 
gy out of a machine which you put into it before. 
Something cannot be produced out of nothing. If 
man is an evolution of the mollusc, then the perfect 
man, the Buddha man, the Christ man, was involved 
in the mollusc. If it is not so, whence come these 
gigantic personalities? Something cannot come out 
of nothing. Thus we are in the position of reconciling 
the scriptures with modern light. That energy which 
manifests itself slowly through various stages until it 
becomes the perfect man cannot come out of nothing. 
It existed somewhere, and if the mollusc, or the pro- 
toplasm, is the first point to which you can trace it, 
that protoplasm, somehow or other, must have con- 
tained the energy. There is a great modern discus- 
sion going on as to whether this aggregate of materials 
we call the body is the cause of manifestation of the 
force we call the soul and thought, etc., or whether it 
is the thought that manifests this body. The religions 
of the world of course hold that the force called 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 35 

thought manifests the body, and not the reverse. 
There are schools of modern people who hold that 
what we call thought is simply the outcome of the 
adjustment of the parts of the machine which we call 
body. Taking the second position, that the soul or 
the mass of the thought, or however you may call it, 
is the outcome of this machine, the outcome of the 
chemical and physical combinations of matter making 
up the body and brain, the question remains unan- 
swered. What makes the body? What force com- 
bines all these molecules into the body form? What 
force is there which takes up material from the mass 
of matter around and forms my body one way, another 
body another way, and so on? What makes these 
infinite distinctions ? To say that the force called soul 
is the outcome of the combinations of the molecules 
of the body is putting the cart before the horse. How 
did the combinations come: where was the force to 
make them? If you say some other force was the 
cause of these combinations and that soul was the out- 
come of that matter, and that soul — which combined 
a certain mass of matter — was itself the result of the 
combinations, it is no answer. That theory ought to 
be taken which explains most of the facts, if not all, 
and without contradicting other existing theories. 
The force which takes up the matter and forms the 
body is the same which manifests through that body, 
and this is more logical. To say therefore that the 
thought- forces manifested by the body are the out- 
come of the arrangement of molecules and have no 
existence at all, has no meaning, neither can force 
evolve out of matter. It is rather more possible to 



36 J NANA YOGA 

demonstrate that what we call matter does not exist 
at all. It is only a certain state of force. Solidity, 
hardness, or anything, can be proved to be the result 
of motion. Increase of vibration will make things 
solid. A mass of air vibrated at a tremendous rate 
would become as solid as a table. A thread of a 
spider's web moved at almost infinite velocity would 
be as strong as an iron chain, would cut through an 
oak tree, such force would be given to it by motion. 
Looking at it that way it would be rather easier to 
prove that what we call matter and so on does not 
exist. But the other way cannot be proved. 

What is this force which is manifesting itself 
through the body? It is obvious to all of us, what- 
ever that force be, that it is taking particles up, as it 
were, and manipulating forms out of them — the human 
body. None other comes here to manipulate bodies 
for you and me. I never saw anybody eat food for 
me. I have to assimilate it, manufacture blood and 
bones and everything out of that food. What is this 
mysterious force? Ideas about the future and about 
the past seem to be terrifying to man. To many they 
seem to be mere speculation. We will take the pres- 
ent theme. What is this force now which is working 
through us? We have seen how in old times in all 
the ancient scriptures this power, this manifestation 
of power, was thought to be a bright substance having 
a body like this body, and which remains even after 
this body falls. Later on, however, we find a higher 
idea coming even — that this body does not represent 
the force. Whatsoever has form must be the result 
of combinations of particles and requires something 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 37 

else behind it to move it. If this body requires some- 
thing which is not the body to manipulate it, the 
bright body, by the same necessity, will also require 
something other than itself to manipulate it. So that 
something was called the soul, the Atman, in Sanskrit. 
It was the Atman which through the bright body, as 
it were, worked on the gross body outside. The 
bright body is considered as the receptacle of the mind, 
and the Atman is beyond that. It is not the mind 
even, it operates the mind, and through the mind the 
body. You have an Atman, I have another, each one 
of us has a separate Atman, and a separate fine body, 
and through that we work on the gross external body. 
Questions were then asked about this Atman, about 
its nature. What is this Atman, this soul of man 
which is neither a body nor a mind? Great discus- 
sions followed. Speculations came, various shades of 
philosophic inquiry came into existence, and I will 
try to place before you some of the conclusions that 
have been reached about this Atman. The different 
philosophies seem to agree that this Atman, whatever 
it be, has neither form nor shape, and that which has 
neither form nor shape must be omnipresent. Time 
begins with mind, space also is in the mind. Causa- 
tion cannot stand without time. Without the idea of 
succession there cannot be any idea of causation. 
Time, space, and causation, therefore, are in the mind, 
and as this Atman is beyond the mind and formless 
it must be beyond time, beyond space, and beyond 
causation. Now if it. is beyond time, space and causa- 
tion, it must be infinite. Then comes the highest 
speculation in our philosophy. The infinite cannot be 



38 J NANA YOGA 

two. If the soul be infinite there can be only one soul, 
and all these ideas of various souls — you having one 
soul, and I having another, and so forth — are not 
real. The real man therefore is one and infinite, the 
omnipresent spirit. And the apparent man is only a 
limitation of that real man. In that sense all these 
mythologies are true, that the apparent man, however 
great he may be, is only a dim reflection of the real 
man which is beyond. The real man, the spirit, being 
beyond cause and effect, not bound by time and space, 
must therefore be free. He was never bound, and 
could not be bound. The apparent man, the reflec- 
tion, is limited by time,, space and causation, and he 
is therefore bound. Or in the language of some of 
our philosophers, he appears to be bound, but really 
is not. This is the reality in our souls, this omni- 
presence, this spiritual nature, this infinity, which we 
are already. Every soul is infinite, therefore there is 
no question of birth and death. Some children were 
being examined. The examiner put them rather hard 
questions, and among them was this question: "Why 
does not the earth fail ?" He wanted to evoke answers 
about gravitation and so forth. Most of the children 
could not answer at all; a few answered that it was 
gravitation or something. One bright little girl an- 
swered it by putting another question : "Where should 
it fall?" The question is nonsense. Where should 
the earth fall? There is no falling or rising for the 
earth. In infinite space there is no up or down; that 
is only in the relative. Where is going or coming for 
the infinite? Whence should it come and whither 
should it go? When people refuse to think of the 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 39 

past, or future, or what is going to become of them— 
when they give up the ideas of body, because being 
limited, the body comes and goes — then they have 
risen to a higher ideal. The body is not the real man, 
neither is the mind, for the mind waxes and wanes. 
It is the spirit beyond which alone can live forever. 
The body and mind are continually changing. These 
are the names of series of changeful phenomena, rivers 
where every particle of water is in a constant state of 
flux; yet we recognize the series as the same river. 
Every particle in this body is continually changing; 
no one has the same body for several minute's together. 
Yet a sort of impression left in the mind makes us 
call it the same. So with the mind, one moment 
happy, another moment unhappy ; one moment strong, 
another weak. An ever-changing whirlpool. That 
cannot be the spirit, for spirit is infinite. Change can 
only be in the limited. To say that the infinite changes 
in any way is absurd; it cannot be. You can move 
and I can move as bodies ; every particle in this uni- 
verse is in a constant state of flux, but taking the 
universe as a unit, as one whole, it cannot move, it 
cannot change. Motion is always a relative thing. 
I move only in relation to something else. Any par- 
ticle in this universe can change in relation to any other 
particle, but the whole universe as one; — in relation 
to what will that move? There is nothing beside it. 
So this infinite unit is unchangeable, immovable, abso- 
lute, and this is the Real Man. Our reality, there- 
fore, consists in the Universal, and not in the limited. 
These are old delusions, however comfortable they 
are, to think that we are little limited beings, constant- 



40 J NANA YOGA 

ly changing. People are frightened when they are 
told that they are Universal Being, everywhere pres- 
ent. Through everything you work, through every 
foot you move, through every lip you talk, through 
every breath you breathe. People are frightened 
when they are told this. They will again and again 
ask you if they are not going to lose their individuali- 
ty. What is any man's individuality? I should be 
glad to see it. 

A little baby has no moustache; when he grows 
older he has a moustache and beard. His individu- 
ality is lost if it is in the body. If I lose one eye, or 
if I lose one of my hands my individuality will be 
lost if it is in the body. A drunkard should not give 
up drinking because he would lose his indivuality. A 
thief need not be a good man because he would there- 
fore lose his individuality. No man ought to change 
his habits for fear of this. There is no individuality 
except in the Infinite. That is the only condition 
which does not change. Everything else is in a con- 
stant state of flux. Neither can individuality be in 
memory. Suppose I receive a blow on the head and 
forget all about my past; then I have lost all my 
individuality; I am gone. I do not remember two or 
three years of my childhood, and if memory and exist- 
ence are one, then whatever I forget is gone. That 
part of my life which I do not remember I did not 
live. That is a very narrow idea of individuality. 
We are not individuals yet. We are struggling 
towards individuality and that is the Infinite; that is 
the real nature of man. He alone lives whose life is 
in the whole universe, and the more we concentrate 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 4I 

our lives on little limited things the faster are we 
going towards death. That moment alone we have 
lived when our lives were in the universe, in others; 
and all those minutes which we concentrated upon 
this little life was death, simply death, and that is 
why the fear of death comes. The fear of death can 
only be conquered when man realizes that so long as 
there is one life in this universe he is living. When 
he can say : 'T am in everything, in every body ; I am 
in all lives, I am the universe, this whole universe is 
my body. How can I die so long as one particle 
remains? Who says I will die?" then alone comes the 
state of fearlessness. To talk of immortality in little 
constantly changing things is ridiculous. Says an old 
Sanskrit philosopher: It is only the spirit that is the 
individual because it is infinite; no infinity can be 
divided; infinity cannot be broken into pieces. It is 
the same one, undivided unit forever, and this is the 
individual man, the Real Man. The apparent man is 
merely a struggle to express, to manifest this indi- 
viduality, which is beyond, and that evolution is not in 
the spirit. These changes which are going on, the 
wicked becoming good, the animal becoming man, 
take it whatever way you like, are not in the spirit. 
Evolution of nature and manifestation of spirit. Sup- 
pose here is a screen hiding you from me, and there 
is a small hole in the screen, and through that I can 
just see some of the faces before me, just a few faces. 
Now suppose this hole begins to grow larger and 
larger. As the hole goes on becoming larger and 
larger, more and more of the scene before me reveals 
itself, and when the hole has become identified with 



42 JNANA YOGA 

the screen I stand face to face with you. You did not 
change at all in this case, you were where you always 
were. It was the hole that was evolving and you 
were manifesting yourself. So it is with the spirit. 
You are already free and perfect. No perfection is 
going to be attained. You are that already — free and 
perfect. What are all these ideas of religion and God 
and searching for the hereafter? Why does man go 
to look for a God? Why in every nation, in every 
state of society did man want a perfect ideal some- 
where, either in man, in God, or anywhere else? Be- 
cause that idea is in you. It is your own heart beating 
and you did not know, you were mistaking it for 
something external. It is the God within your own 
self that is impelling you to seek for Him, to realize 
Him, and after long search here and there, in temples 
and in churches, in earths, in heavens, and in all 
various ways, at last you come back, complete the 
circle from where you started, back to your own soul 
and find that He for whom you have been seeking all 
over the world, for whom you have been weeping and 
praying in churches and temples, on whom you were 
looking as the mystery of all mysteries shrouded 
behind the clouds. He nearest of the near, your own 
Self, the reality of your own life, your body and your 
soul. That is your own nature, the real nature of man. 
Assert it, manifest it. You are pure already. You 
are not to become perfect, you are that already. This 
w^hole of nature is like that screen which was hiding 
the reality beyond. Every good thought that you 
think or act upon is simply tearing the veil, as it were, 
and the purity, the Infinity, the God behind, manifests 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 43 

itself. This is the whole history of man. Finer and 
finer becomes the veil, more and more of the light 
behind shines by its own nature, for it is its nature to 
shine. It cannot be known ; ni vain we try to know it. 
Were it knowable, it would not be what it is, for it is 
the Eternal Subject : knowledge is a limitation, knowl- 
edge is objectifying. He is the eternal subject of 
everything, the eternal witness in this universe, your 
own Self. Knowledge is, as it were, a lower step, a 
degeneration. We are that Eternal Subject already; 
how to know it? That is the real nature of every 
man and he is struggling to express it in various 
ways; else why are there so many ethical codes? 
Where is the explanation of all ethics? One idea 
stands out as the centre in all ethics, expressed in 
various forms; doing good to others. The guiding 
motive of mankind is charity towards men, charity 
towards all animals. But these are all various expres- 
sions of that eternal truth that "I am the universe; 
this universe is one." Else where is the reason ? Why 
shall I do good to my fellow men? Why should I 
do good to others? What compels me? It is this 
sympathy, this feeling the sameness everywhere. The 
hardest hearts feel sympathy to other beings some- 
times. Even the man who gets frightened if he is 
told that this assumed individuality is really a delu- 
sion, that it is ignoble to try to cling to this apparent 
individuality, that very man will tell you that extreme 
self-abnegation is the centre of all morality ; and what 
is perfect self-abnegation? What remains? Self- 
abnegation means the abnegation of this apparent self, 
the abnegation of all selfishness. This idea of "me" 



44 JNANA YOGA 

and "mine" — ahankdra and mama — is the result of 
past superstition, and the more this present self rolls 
away, the more the Real Self becomes manifest in its 
full glory. This is real self-abnegation, the centre, 
the basis, the gist of all moral teaching, and whether 
men know it or not, the whole world is slowly going 
towards that, practising that more or less. Only the 
vast majority of mankind do it unconsciously. Let 
them do it consciously. Let them make the sacrifice 
knowing that this is not the real self; this is nothing 
but a limitation. One glimpse of that Infinite Reality 
which is behind, one spark of that Infinite Fire that is 
the All, represents the present man, but that Infinite 
is his true nature. 

What is the utility, the effect, the result of this 
knowledge ? In these days we have to measure every- 
thing by utility. That is to say generally, by how 
many pounds, shillings and pence it represents. What 
right has a person to ask that truth should be judged 
by the standard of utility or money ? Suppose there is 
no utility, will it be less truth ? Utility is not the test 
of truth. Nevertheless, there is the highest utility in 
this. Happiness, we see, is what every one is seeking 
for, but the majority seek it in things which are 
evanescent, and which are not real. No happiness 
/ was ever found in the senses. There never was a 
V person who found happiness in the senses, or in enjoy- 
ments of the senses. Happiness is only found in the 
/ spirit. Therefore the highest utility to mankind is to 
/ find this happiness in the spirit. The next point is, 
that ignorance is the great mother of all misery, and 
this is the fundamental ignorance, to think that the 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 45 

Infinite weeps and cries that he is finite, and this is 
the basis of all ignorance, that we, the immortal, the 
ever pure, the perfect spirit, think that we are little 
minds, that we are little bodies; this is the mother of 
all selfishness. As soon as I am a little body I want 
to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the 
expense of other bodies; you and I have become sep- 
arate. As soon as this idea of separation comes, it 
opens the door to all mischief and leads to all misery. 
This is the utility, that if a very small fractional part 
of the human beings living to-day can put aside this 
idea of selfishness and narrowness and littleness, this 
earth will become a paradise to-morrow, but with 
machines and improvements of material knowledge it 
will never come. These only increase misery, as oil 
poured on fire increases the flame all the more. With- 
out the knowledge of spirit, every bit of material 
knowledge is only adding fuel to fire, only giving into 
the hands of selfish man one more instrument to take 
what belongs to others, to live upon the life of others, 
instead of giving up his life for others. 

Is it practical, is another question. Can it be prac- 
tised in modern society. Truth does not pay homage 
to any society, modern or ancient. Society has to pay 
homage to Truth, or die. Societies and all beings are 
moulded upon truth, and truth has not to adjust itself 
to society. If such noble truth as unselfishness cannot 
be practised in society, better give up society and go 
into forests. That is the daring man. There are two 
sorts of courage. One is the courage to jump at the 
mouth of a cannon. Tigers, in that case, have been 
braver than men and wolves also. But there is also 



46 J NANA YOGA 

the courage of spiritual boldness. An invading Em- 
peror went to India. His teacher told him to go and 
see some of those sages of India. After a long search 
he found a very old man sitting on a block of stone. 
The Emperor talked with him a little and became very 
much pleased with the conversation of the man. He 
asked the sage to go with him to his country. "No, 
I am quite satisfied with my forest here." Said the 
Emperor, "I will give you money, position, wealth. 
I am the Emperor of the world." "No," replied the 
man, "I don't care for those things." The Emperor 
replied, "If you do not go I will kill you." The man 
smiled serenely. "That is the most foolish thing you 
ever said, Emperor. You cannot kill me. Me the 
sun cannot dry, neither fire can burn, neither instru- 
ment kill, for I am the birthless, the deathless, the 
omnipotent, omnipresent spirit, ever living." That 
is another boldness. In the Mutiny of 1857 there was 
a great Swami, a very great soul. A Mahommedan 
mutineer stabbed him and nearly killed him. The 
Hindu mutineers brought the Mahommedan to the 
Swami and offered to kill him. But the Swami turned 
and said: "Yet, brother, thou art He, thou art He!" 
and expired. That is another bravery. What is it to 
talk of the bravery of your muscles, of the superiority 
of your Western institutions, if you cannot make a 
truth square with your society, if you cannot build 
up a society into which the highest truth will fit? 
What is this boastful talk about your grandeur and 
greatness, if you above all things stand up and say, 
"This kind of courage is not practical." Is nothing 
practical, but pounds, shillings, and pence? If so, 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 47 

why the boast of your society? That society is the 
greatest where the highest truths become practical. 
That is my opinion, and if society is not fit for the 
highest truths, make it fit. Make it if you can, and 
the sooner you do so, the better. Stand up, men and 
women, in the spirit, dare to beheve in the truth, dare 
to practise the truth. The world requires a few hun- 
dred bold men and women. It is very hard to be bold. 
In that animal boldness, the tigers can do better. 
Wolves have it naturally. Even the ants are better 
than all other animals. What use to talk of this physi- 
cal boldness! Practice that boldness which does not 
quake before death, which welcomes death, which 
stands there and knows it is the spirit and in the 
whole universe, no arms can kill it, not all the light- 
nings can kill it. Not all the fire in the universe can 
burn it. It dares know the truth and show the truth 
in life. This is the free man, this is the real soul. 
**This Atman is first to be heard, then thought about, 
and then meditated upon." 

There is a great tendency in modern times to talk 
too much of works and decry all thought. Doing is 
very good, but even that comes from thinking. Little 
manifestations of energy which have originated in 
thought are escaping through the muscles and are 
called work. Where there is no thought, there will 
be no work. Fill the brain, therefore, with high 
thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night 
before you, and out of that will come great work. 
Talk not about impuritv, but tell the mind we are 
pure. We have hypnotized ourselves into this thought 
that we are little, that we are born and that we 



^8 J NANA YOGA 

are going to die, and into living in a constant state 
of fear. 

There was a lioness, heavy with young, going about 
in search of prey, and there was a flock of sheep, and 
the lioness jumped upon the flock. She died in the 
attempt and a little baby lion was born, motherless. 
It was taken care of by the sheep and the sheep brought 
it up and it grew with the sheep, lived on grass like the 
sheep, bleated like the sheep, and although it became 
a big full-grown lion, to all intents and purposes it 
thought it was a sheep. In course of time another 
big lion came in search of prey, and what was its 
astonishment to find that in the midst of this flock was 
this lion flying like the sheep at the approach of 
danger. He tried to get near to teach it that it was 
not a sheep, but a lion, but at the very approach of the 
other lion the sheep fled, and with it the sheep-lion. 
But the other lion was rather kind, he watched, and 
one day found the big sheep-lion sleeping. He jumped 
on it and said, "You are a lion." "I am a sheep," 
cried the other lion. He would not believe, but 
bleated. The lion dragged him towards a lake and 
said, "Look there, there is my reflection and yours." 
Then came the comparison. He looked at this lion 
and then at his own reflection, and in a moment came 
the idea that he was a lion. The lion roared, the 
bleating was gone. You are the lions, you are souls, 
pure, infinite and perfect. The might of the universe 
is in you. "Why weepest thou, my friend ? There is 
neither birth nor death for thee. Why weepest thou ? 
There is no disease nor misery for thee, but thou art 
like the infinite sky, clouds of various colors come 



THE REAL NATURE OF MAN 49 

over it, play for a moment, then vanish. It is the same 
eternal blue." Why do we see wickedness? There 
was a stump of a tree in the dark at night. A thief 
came that way and said, "That is a policeman." A 
young man waiting for his beloved came that way and 
thought that was his sweetheart. A child who had 
been told ghost stories came out and began to shriek 
that it was a ghost. But it was the stump of a tree. 
We see the world as we are. Put on the table a bag 
of gold and let a baby be here. Let a thief come and 
take the gold. Would the baby know it was stolen? 
That which we have inside we see outside. The baby 
has no thief inside and sees no thief outside. So with 
all knowledge. Do not talk of the wickedness of the 
world and all its sins. Weep that you are bound to 
see wickedness yet. Weep that you are bound to see 
sin everywhere, and if you want to help the world do 
not condemn it. Do not weaken it all the more. For 
what is sin and what is misery, and what are all these, 
but the results of weakness? The world has been 
made weaker and weaker every day by such teachings. 
Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and 
are sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious 
children of immortality, even those who are the weak- 
est in manifestation. Let positive, strong, helpful 
thought, enter into their brains from very childhood 
and not weakening and paralyzing thought. Lay 
yourselves open to those thoughts. Tell your own 
minds *T am He, I am He." Let it ring day and night 
in your minds like a song, and at the point of death 
declare: "I am He." That is the truth, the infinite 
strength of the world is yours. Drive out the super- 



50 JNANA YOGA 

stition that has covered your minds. Let us be brave. 
Know the truth and practise the truth. The goal may 
be distant, but awake, arise, and stop not till that goal 
is reached. 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 

Almost all of you have heard of the word Maya- 
Generally it is used, though I am afraid very wrongly, 
to denote illusion, or delusion, or some such thing, 
but as the theory of Maya forms, as it were, one of 
the pillars upon which the Vedanta rests, it is neces- 
sary that it should be properly understood, and I ask 
a little patience of you, for there is great danger of 
being misunderstood in expounding the theory of 
mdyd. The oldest idea of mdyd that we can find in 
Vedic literature is where this word is used in the 
sense of delusion, but then the real theory had not 
been reached. We find such passages as "Indra 
through his mdyd assumed various forms." Here it 
is true the word mdyd means something like magic. 
So we find various other passages, always taking the 
same meaning. The word mdyd then drops out of 
sight altogether. In the meanwhile the idea is devel- 
oping. Later the question is raised, why cannot we 
know the secret of the Universe, and the answer given 
is very significant. "Because we talk in vain, and^ 
because we are satisfied with the things of the senses, 
and because we are running after desires; therefore 
we, as it were, cover this reality with a mist." Here 
the word mdyd is not used at all, but we get one idea, 

51 



52 JNANA YOGA 

that the cause of our ignorance is a kind of mist that 
has come between us and the truth. Much later on, 
in one of the latest Upanishads, we find the word 
maya, reappearing, but by this time a good deal of 
transformation has been worked upon it, a mass of 
new meaning has by this time attached itself to the 
word. Theories have been propounded and repeated ; 
others have been taken up, until at last the idea of 
mdyd has become a fixed quantity. We read in the 
Svetas'vatara Upanishad ''Know nature to be mdyd 
and the mind, the ruler of this mdyd is the Lord 
Himself." Coming to our philosophers, we find that 
this word mdyd has been manipulated in various 
fashions, until we come to the great S'ankaracharya. 
The theory of mdyd was manipulated a little by the 
Buddhists, too, but in their hands it became very 
much like what is caled Idealism, and that is the 
meaning that is now generally given to the word 
mdyd. When the Hindu says the world is mdyd, at 
once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. 
This interpretation has some basis, as coming through 
the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one 
section of them who did not believe in the external 
world at all. But the mdyd of the Vedanta, in 
its last developed form, is neither idealism nor real- 
ism, nor is it theory. It is a simple statement of 
facts — what we are, and what we see around us. As 
I have told you before, the minds of the people from 
whom the Vedas came were intent upon following 
principles, discovering principles. They had no time to 
work upon details, or to wait for them; they wanted 
to go deep into the heart of things. Something 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 53 

beyond was calling them, as it were, and they could 
not wait. We find that, scattered all through the 
Upanishads and other books the details of subjects 
which we now call modern sciences, are often very 
erroneous, but, at the same time, their principles are 
correct. For instance, the idea of ether, which is one 
of the latest theories of modern science, is to be found 
in our ancient literature in forms much more devel- 
oped than is the modern scientific theory of ether 
to-day; but it was in principle; when they tried to 
demonstrate the workings of that principle, they made 
many mistakes. The theory of the all-pervading life 
principle, of which all life in this universe is but a 
differing manifestation, was understood in Vedic 
times ; it is found in the Brahmanas. There is a long 
hymn in the Samhita in praise of Prana, of which all 
life is but a manifestation. By the bye, it may interest 
some of you to know that there are in the Vedic phil- 
osophy theories about the origin of life on this earth 
very similar to those which have been advanced by 
some modern European scientists. You, of course, 
all know that there is a theory that life came from 
other planets. It is a settled doctrine with some Vedic 
philosophers that life comes in this way from the 
moon. 

Coming to the principles, we find these Vedic 
thinkers very courageous and wonderfully bold in pro- 
pounding large and generalized theories. The answer 
which they gave as a solution of the mystery of this 
Universe from the external world was a general one. 
The detailed workings of modern science do not bring 
the question one step nearer to solution, because the 



54 J NANA YOGA 

principles have failed. If the theory of ether failed in 
ancient times to give a solution of the mystery of the 
Universe, working out the details of that ether theory 
will not bring us much nearer to the truth. If the 
theory of all-pervading life failed as a theory of this 
Universe, it would not mean anything more if worked 
out in detail, for the details do not change the prin- 
ciple of the Universe. What I mean is, that in their 
inquiry into the principle, the Hindu thinkers were 
as bold, and in some cases much bolder, than the 
moderns. They made some of the grandest general- 
izations that have yet been reached, and some still 
remain in India as theories, which modern science 
has yet to get even as theories. For instance, they not 
only arrived at the ether theory, but went beyond and 
classified mind also, as a still more rarefied ether. 
Beyond that they found a still more rarefied ether. 
Yet there is no solution, it does not answer the prob- 
lem. No amount of knowledge of the external world 
would answer the problem. We find here we were 
just beginning to know a little; wait a few thousand 
years and we shall get the solution. '*No," says the 
Vedantist, for he has proved beyond all doubt that 
the mind is limited; that it cannot go beyond certain 
limits; we cannot go beyond time, space and the law 
of causation. , As no man can jump out of his own 
self, so no man can go beyond the limits that have 
been put upon us by the laws of time and space. 
Every attempt to solve the law of causation, time and 
space, will be futile, because the very attempt would 
have to be made by taking for granted the existence 
of these three. It cannot be. What form does the 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 55 

statement of the existence of the world take then? 
"This world has no existence." What is meant 
thereby ? That it has no existence-absolute. It exists 
only as relative to my mind, to yours, and to the minds 
of everybody else. We see this world with the five 
senses. If we had another sense, we would see in it 
something else. If we had still another sense, it 
would appear as something yet different. It has, 
therefore, no real existence; that unchangeable, im- 
movable, infinite existence it has not. Nor can it be 
called non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have 
to work in and through it. It is a mixture of exist- 
ence and non-existence. 

Coming from abstractions to the common everyday 
details of our lives, we find that our whole life is a 
mixture of this contradiction of existence and non- 
existence. There is this contradiction in knowledge. 
It seems that man can know everything, if he only 
wants to know; but before he has gone more than a 
few steps he finds an adamantine wall which he cannot 
move. All his work is in a circle, and he cannot go 
beyond that circle. The problems which are nearest 
and dearest to him, are impelling him and calling on 
him day and night for a solution, but he cannot solve 
them, because he cannot go beyond his intellect. And 
yet the desire is implanted strongly in him. Still we 
know that the only good is to be obtained by con- 
trolling and checking these impulses. With every 
breath, every impulse of our heart asks us to be selfish. 
At the same time, there is some power beyond us 
which says that it is unselfishness alone which is good. 
Every child is a born optimist ; he is dreaming golden 



56 J NANA YOGA 

dreams. In youth he becomes still more optimistic. 
It is hard for a young man to believe that there is 
such a thing as death, such a thing as defeat or degra- 
dation. Old age comes, and life is a mass of ruin. 
Dreams have vanished into air, and the old man has 
become a pessimist. Thus we are going on, from 
one extreme to the other, buffeted by Nature, without 
hope, without limit, without knowing the bounds, 
without knowing where we are going. It reminds 
me of a celebrated song written in the Lalita Vistara, 
in the biography of Buddha. Buddha was born, says 
the book, as the saviour of mankind, but he forgot 
himself in the luxuries of his palace, and some angels 
came to sing a song to rouse him up, and the burden 
of the whole song is, we are floating down this river, 
continually changing, with no stop and no rest. So 
are all our lives, going on and on without knowing 
any rest. What are we to do? The man who has 
enough to eat and drink is an optimist, and he avoids 
all mention of misery, for it frightens him. Tell not 
to him the sorrows and the suiferings of the world; 
go to him and tell that it is all good. "Yes, I am 
safe," says he; "look at me, I have a nice house to 
live in. I do not care for cold; therefore do not 
bring these horrid pictures before me." But, on the 
other hand, there are others dying of cold and hunger. 
Go and teach them that it is all good and they will 
refuse to believe you. There may be a man who has 
suffered tremendously in this life, and he will not 
hear of anything joyful, of anything beautiful, of 
anything that is good. "Frighten everybody," says 
he ; "why should it be that anybody should laugh while 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 57 

I am weeping? I must make them all weep with me, 
for I am miserable; that is my only consolation." 
Thus we are going on, between optimism and pes- 
simism. Then there is the tremendous fact of death. 
The whole world is going to death ; everything is 
dying. All our progress, our vanities, our reforms, 
our luxuries, our knowledge have that one end — 
death. That is all that is certain. Cities come and 
go, empires rise and fall, planets break into pieces 
and crumble into dust, to be blown about by the 
atmospheres of other planets. Thus it is going on 
from time without beginning. What is the goal? 
Death is the goal of everything. Death is the goal 
of life, of beauty, of power, of wealth, of virtue, too. 
Saints die and sinners die, kings die and beggars die. 
They are all going to death, and yet this tremendous 
clinging on to life exists. Somehow, we do not know 
why, we have to cling on to life; we cannot give it 
up. And this is mdyd! 

The mother is nursing a child with great care; all 
her soul, her life, is in that child. The child grows, 
becomes a man, and perchance becomes a blackguard 
and a brute, kicks her and beats her every day; and 
yet the mother clings on to the child, and when her 
reason awakes, she covers it up with the idea of love. 
She little thinks it is not love, it is something which 
has got hold of her nerves, she cannot shake it off; 
however she may try, she cannot shake off the bondage 
she has — and this is mdyd! We are all after the 
golden fleece. Every one of us thinks that this will 
be ours, but very few of them are in the world. 
Every reasonable man sees that the chance of getting 



58 J NANA YOGA 

it is perhaps one in twenty millions, yet every one must 
struggle for it, and the majority never get anything. 
And this is may a! Death is stalking day and night 
over this earth of ours, but at the same time we 
always believe that we shall live eternally. A ques- 
tion was once asked of King Yudhisthira, "What is 
the most wonderful thing on this earth?" And the 
King replied, "Every day people are dying around us, 
and yet men think they will never die." And this is 
may a! This tremendous contradiction, pleasure suc- 
ceeding pain, and pain pleasure, seems quite natural 
to us. A reformer arises and wants to remedy the 
evils that are existing in a certain nation; and before 
they have been remedied a thousand other evils have 
arisen in another place. It is an old house that is 
falling; patch it up in one place, the ruin extends to 
another corner. In India our reformers cry and 
preach against the evils which enforced widowhood 
brings to Indian women. In the West non-marriage 
is the great evil. Help the unmarried on one side; 
they are suffering. Help the widows on the other; 
they are suffering. Like the old rheumatism in the 
body, drive it from the head and it goes to the body, 
drive it from there and it goes to the feet. Some 
people become richer than others ; learning, and wealth, 
and culture become their exclusive possession. 
Reformers cry that these treasures should not be in 
the hands of a select few; that they should be dis- 
tributed, that all ought to share them. More happi- 
ness might possibly be brought to the masses in the 
sense of physical happiness, but, perhaps, as culture 
comes, this physical happiness vanishes. Which way 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 59 

shall we go, for the knowledge of happiness brings 
the knowledge of unhappiness? The least bit of 
material prosperity that we enjoy is elsewhere causing 
the same amount of misery. This is the state of 
things. The young, perhaps, do not see it clearly, but 
those who have lived long enough and those who 
have struggled enough will understand it. And this 
is may a! These things are going on day and night, 
and to find a solution of this problem would be impos- 
sible. Why should it be thus ? This is an impossible 
question to answer, because the question cannot be 
logically formulated. There is neither how nor why 
in this. We must grasp it before we can answer it; 
we must know what it is before we can answer. But 
we cannot make it steady one moment, it eludes our 
grasp every minute. We are like blind machines. 
We struggle to find a solution of a problem that 
incessantly changes; we have to do this, we cannot 
help ourselves. And this too is may a! I stand up and 
lecture to you, and you sit and listen ; we cannot help it. 
And you will go home, and some of you may have 
learned a little, while, perhaps, others will think this 
man has talked nonsense. I will go home thinking 
I have been lecturing. And this is may a! 

Maya is a statement of the facts of this Universe, 
of how it is going on. People generally get fright- 
ened when these things are told to them. Bold we 
must be. Hiding facts is not the way to find a 
remedy. As the hare, you all know, hunted down 
by dogs, puts its head down and thinks itself safe, 
so, when we run into optimism or pessimism, we are 
doing just like the hare, but that is not a remedy. 



6o J NANA YOGA 

On all sides there are objections and these objec- 
tions, you may remark, are generally from people 
who possess more of the good things of life, or of 
enjoyments. In this country (England) it is very 
difficult to become a pessimist. Every one tells me 
how wonderfully the world is going on, how pro- 
gressive, but what he himself is, is his own world. 
Old questions arise ; Christianity must be the only true 
religion of the world, because Christian nations are 
prosperous. But that assertion contradicts itself, 
because the prosperity of the Christian nations depends 
on the misfortune of non-Christian nations. There 
must be some to prey upon. Suppose the whole world 
were to become Christian, then the Christian nations 
would become poor, because there would be no non- 
Christian nations for them to prey upon. Thus the 
argument would kill itself. Animals are living upon 
the plants, men upon animals, and worst of all upon 
each other, the strong upon the weak; this is going 
on everywhere, and this is may a! What solution do 
you apply to this? We hear every day of such and 
such explanations, and are told that in the long run 
it will be all good. Suppose it be possible — which is 
very much to be doubted — ^but let us take it for granted, 
why should there be this diabolical way of doing good ? 
Why cannot good be done through good instead of 
through these diabolical methods? The descendants 
of the human beings^ of to-day will be happy ; but why 
must there be all this suffering so now? This is 
mdyd; there is no solution to it. 

Again, we often hear that it is one of the features 
of evolution that it eliminates evil, and this evil being 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 6l 

continually eliminated from the world, at last there 
will remain only good and good alone. That is very 
nice to hear, and it panders to our vanities, at least 
with those of us who have enough of this world's 
goods, who have not a hard struggle to face every 
day, and are not being crushed under the wheels of 
this so-called evolution. It is very good and comfort- 
ing, indeed, to such fortunate ones. The common 
herds may suffer, but they do not care; let them die, 
they are of no consequence. Very good, yet this argu- 
ment is fallacious from beginning to end. It takes 
for granted, in the first place, that manifested good 
and evil in this world are certain quantities. In the 
second place, it makes a still worse assumption, that 
the amount of good is an increasing quantity, and the 
amount of evil is a decreasing quantity. So, if evil is 
being eliminated in this way by what they call evolu- 
tion, there will come a time when this evil will be 
eliminated and what remains will be all good. Very 
( easy to say, but can it be proved that evil is a lessening 
quantity? Is it not increasing all the time? Take 
the man who lives in a forest, who does not know 
even how to cultivate the mind, cannot read a book, 
has not heard of such a thing as writing. Run a 
bayonet through that man and take it out, and soon he 
is all right again, while we, who are more cultured, 
get scratched in the streets and die. Machines are 
making things cheap, making for progress and evolu- 
tion, but are crushing down millions, that one may 
become rich, making one richer than others, and 
thousands at the same time poorer and poorer, making 
slaves of whole masses of human beings. That way 



62 J NANA YOGA 

it is going on. 'The animal man has enjoyments only 
in the senses. If he does not get enough to eat, he 
is miserable, or if something happens to his body, he 
is miserable. In the senses, both his misery and his 
happiness begin and end. As soon as this man pro- 
gresses, as soon as the horizon of his happiness 
increases, his horizon of unhappiness increases pro- 
portionately. The man in the forest does not know 
what it is to be jealous, to be in the Law Courts, to 
pay taxes regularly, what it is to be blamed by society, 
to be watched day and night by the most tremendous 
tyranny that human diabolism ever invented, prying 
into the secrets of every human heart. He does not 
know how man becomes a thousand times more diabol- 
ical than any other animal, with all his vain knowledge, 
and with all his pride. Thus it is that, as we emerge 
out of the senses we develop higher powers of enjoy- 
ment, and, at the same time, we have to develop 
higher powers of suffering, too. The nerves, on the 
other hand, are becoming finer and capable of suffer- 
ing more. Often, in every society, we find that the 
ignorant, common man, if he is abused, does not feel 
much, but he feels a good thrashing. But the gentle- 
man cannot bear a single word of abuse, he has become 
so finely nerved. Misery has increased with his sus- 
ceptibility to happiness. This does not go much to 
prove the philosopher's case. As we increase our 
power to be happy, we are always increasing our 
power to suffer, and in my humble opinion, if we 
advance in our power to become happy in arithmetical 
progression, we shall progress, on the other hand, in 
the power to become miserable in geometrical progres- 



^M^fU, 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 63 

sion. ") We who are progressing know that the more we 
progress the more avenues are opened to pain as well 
as to pleasure. And this is may a! 

Thus we find that mdyd is not a theory for the 
explanation of the world; it is simply a statement of 
facts as they exist. The very basis of our being is 
contradiction, everywhere we have to move through 
this tremendous contradiction, that wherever there is 
good there must also be evil, and wherever there is 
evil there must be some good, wherever there is life 
death must follow it as its shadow, and every one 
who smiles will have to weep, and whoever weeps 
must smile also. Nor can this state of things be 
remedied. We may verily imagine that there will be 
a place where there will be only good, and no evil, 
that there will be places where we shall only smile 
and never weep. Such a thing is impossible in the 
very nature of things, for the conditions will be the 
same. Wherever there is the power of producing a 
smile in us, there lurks the power of producing tears 
in our eyes. Wherever there is the power of pro- 
ducing happiness in us, there lurks somewhere the 
power of making us miserable. 

Thus the Vedanta philosophy is neither optimistic 
nor pessimistic. It voices both these views and takes 
things as they are; it admits that this world is a 
mixture of good and evil, happiness and misery; and 
that to increase the one, of necessity must increase 
the other. There will never be a good world, because 
the very idea is a contradiction in terms ; nor can 
there be a bad world. The great secret revealed by 
this analysis is this, that good and bad are not two 



64 JNANA YOGA 

cut-and-dried, separate existences. There is not one 
thing in this world of ours which you can label as 
good, and good alone, and there is not one thing in 
the universe which you can label as bad, and bad 
alone. The very same phenomenon which is appear- 
ing to be good now, may appear to be bad to-morrow. 
The same thing which is producing misery in one, 
may produce happiness in another. The fire that burns 
the child may cook a good meal for a starving man. 
The same nerves that carry the sensations of misery 
carry also the sensations of happiness. The only way 
to stop evil, therefore, is to stop the good also; there 
is no other way that is sure. To stop death, we shall 
have to stop life also. Life without death, and happi- 
ness without misery, are contradictions, and neither 
can be found alone, because each of them is but a 
different manifestation of the same thing. What I 
thought to be good yesterday, I do not think to be 
good now. In all my life, when I look back upon it, 
and see what were my ideals at different times, I find 
this to be so. At one time my ideal was to drive a 
strong pair of horses. I do not hold that ideal now. 
At another time, when I was a little child, I thought 
if I could make a certain kind of sweetmeat I should 
be perfectly happy. At another time I imagined that 
I should be entirely satisfied if I had a wife and 
children and plenty of money. To-day, I laugh at all 
these ideals as mere childish nonsense. The Vedanta 
says, there must come a time when we look back and 
laugh at these ideals of ours which make us afraid 
of giving up our individuality. Each one wants to 
keep this body and not give it up, and our idea is that 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 65 

if we can keep the body for an indefinite time we 
shall be very happy, but there will come a time when 
we shall laugh at that too. Now, if such be the state 
of things, we are in a state of helpless contradiction, 
neither existence, nor non-existence, but a mixture 
of them both; neither misery, nor happiness, but a 
mixture of them both. What, then, is the use of 
Vedanta, and all other philosophies and religions? 
And, above all, what is the use of doing good work? 
This is the question that comes to the mind. If this 
be the truth, that whenever you try to do good the 
same evil remains, and whenever you try to create 
happiness there will always be mountains high of 
misery, people will always ask you — what is the use 
of doing right? The answer is, in the first place, that 
we must work in the way of lessening misery, for 
that is the only way of making ourselves happy. 
Every one of us finds it out sooner or later in our 
lives. The bright ones find it out a little earlier, and 
the dull ones a little later. The dull ones pay very 
dearly for the discovery and the bright ones less 
dearly. In the second place, apart from that, although 
we know there never will come a time when this 
universe will be full of happiness and without misery, 
still this is the work to be done; although misery 
increases, we must do our part at the same time. Both 
these forces will make the universe live until there 
will come a time when we shall awake from our 
dreams and give up this building of mud-pies, which 
we are doing all the time, for it is true that it is only 
a building of mud-pies. That one lesson we shall have 
to learn. It will take a long, long time to learn it. 



66 JNANA YOGA 

Attempts have been made in Germany to build a 
system of philosophy on the basis that the Infinite has 
become the finite. Such attempts are made even in 
England now, and the analysis of the position of these 
philosophers is this, that the Infinite is trying to 
express Itself in this universe. The mistake is that 
they imagine there will come a time when the Infinite 
will succeed in expressing itself. In that case the 
absolute state would be a lower one than the mani- 
fested, because in the manifested state, the Absolute 
expresses itself, and we are to help this expression 
more and more, until the Infinite pours itself out on 
this side as the finite. This is all very nice, and we 
have used the words infinite and manifestation and 
expression, and so on, but philosophers naturally ask 
for a logical, fundamental basis for the statement that 
the finite can fully express the Infinite. The Absolute 
and the Infinite can become this universe only by limi- 
tation. Everything here, therefore, must be limited, 
everything that comes out of the senses, or through 
the mind, or through the intellect, must of necessity 
be limited, and for the limited to be the unlimited is 
simply absurd, and can never be. 

The Vedanta, on the other hand, says that it is true 
that the Absolute, or the Infinite, is trying to express 
itself in the finite, but there will come a time when 
it will find that it is impossible, and it will then have 
to beat a retreat, and this beating a retreat is the real 
beginning of religion. It is very hard for modern 
people to talk of renunciation. I stand, as it was said 
of me in America, as a man coming out of a world 
that has been dead and buried these five thousand 



MAYA AND ILLUSION •6'J 

years, and talking of renunciation. So says, perhaps, 
the English philosopher. Yet it is true that that is 
the only path to religion — renounce and give up. 
Struggle hard and try your best to find any other way. 
What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for 
my sake, shall find it." Again and again did he preach 
renunciation as the only way to be perfect. There 
comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and 
dreary dream, and longs for some satisfying reality. 
It finds the truth of the statement : "Desires are never 
satisfied by the enjoyment of desires they only increase 
the more, as butter poured upon the fire increases 
the flame the more." This is true of all sense enjoy- 
ments, of all intellectual enjoyments, and of all the 
enjoyments of which the human soul is capable. 
They are all without real value, they are within mdyd, 
within this net-work beyond which we cannot go. 
We may run therein through infinite time and find 
no end, and whenever we struggle to get a little bit 
of enjoyment, a mass of misery will be on our back. 
How awful is this state of things ! And when I think 
of all this, I cannot but think that this theory of mdyd, 
this statement that it is all mdyd, is the best and only 
explanation. What an amount of misery there is in 
this world, and if you travel among various nations 
you will find that one nation has attempted to cure its 
evils by one means, and another by enother. Evil 
has been taken up by the various races, and attempts 
have been made in various ways to check it, yet no 
nation has succeeded. If it has been minimized in 
one point, a mass of evil has been crowded into 
another point. Thus it goes. The Hindus, to pro- 



68 J NANA YOGA 

duce a little chastity in the race, have sanctioned child- 
marriage, which in the long run has degraded the 
race. At the same time, I cannot deny that this child- 
marriage makes the race more chaste. What would 
you have ? If you want the nation to be more chaste, 
you weaken men and women physically by child- 
marriage. On the other hand, are you in England 
any safer ? No, because chastity is the life of a nation. 
Do you not find in history that the first death-sign 
of a nation has been unchastity? When that has 
entered, the end of the race is in sight. Where shall 
we get a solution of these miseries then? If parents 
select husbands and wives for their children, will this 
evil be prevented? The daughters of India are more 
practical than sentimental. Very little of poetry 
remains in their lives. Again, if people select their 
own husbands and wives, that does not seem to bring 
much happiness, if the records of the divorce court 
are to be trusted. The Indian woman is very happy; 
there is scarcely a case of quarrelling between husband 
and wife. On the other hand, in the United States, 
where the greatest liberty obtains, the number of 
unhappy homes and marriages is very large. Unhap- 
piness is here, there and everywhere. What does it 
show? That, after all, not much happiness has been 
gained by all these ideals. We all struggle for hap- 
piness, and before we get a little on one side on the 
other side there begins unhappiness. 

Shall we not work to do good then? Yes, with 
more zest than ever, but what this knowledge will 
do for us is to break down our fanaticism. The 
Englishman will no more become a fanatic to curse 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 



69 



the Hindu. He will have learned to respect the cus- 
toms of different nations. There will be less fanati- 
cism and more real work; fanatics cannot work, they 
waste three-fourths of their energy. It is the level- 
headed, calm, practical man who works. Mere ranting 
fanatics do not do much. So the power to work will 
increase from this idea. Knowing that this is the 
state of things, there will be more patience. The 
sight of misery or of evil will not be able to throw 
us off our balance and make us run after shadows. 
Therefore, patience will come to us, knowing that 
the world will have to go on in this way. Say, for 
instance, that all men will have become good, then 
the animals will have become men, and will have to 
go through the same state, and so the plants. But 
only one thing is certain ; the mighty river is rush- 
ing towards the ocean, and there are bits of straw 
and paper in the stream, which are trying to get back, 
but we are sure that the time will come when each one 
of these pieces will be drawn into that boundless 
ocean. So, in this life, with all its miseries and sor- 
rows, its joys and smiles and tears, one thing is certain, 
that all things are rushing towards their goal and 
it is only a question of time when you and I, and 
plants and animals, and every particle of life that 
exists must go into the Infinite Ocean of perfection, 
must attain unto freedom, unto God. 

Let me repeat, once more, because the mistake is 
constantly being made, that the Vedantic position is 
neither pessimism nor optimism. It does not say that 
this world is all evil or all good. It says that our 
evil is of no less value than our good, and our good 



70 J NANA YOGA 

of no more value than our evil. They are all bound 
together. This is the world, and knowing this you 
work with patience. What for? Why should we 
work ? If this is the state of things what shall we do ? 
Why not become agnostics? The modern agnostics 
also know that there is no solution of this problem, no 
getting out of this evil, or this mdyd, as we should 
say in our language ; therefore, they tell us to be satis- 
fied and enjoy life. Here, again, is a mistake, a tre- 
mendous mistake, a most illogical mistake. And it is 
this. What do you mean by life? Do you mean 
only the life of the senses? In this, every one of us 
differs only slightly from the brutes. I am sure that 
no one is present here whose life is only in the senses. 
Then this present life means something more than 
that. Our feelings and thoughts and aspirations are 
all part and parcel of our life, and is not the struggle 
towards the great ideal, towards perfection, one of 
the most important components of what we call life? 
According to the agnostics, we must enjoy life as it 
is. But this life means, above all, this tremendous 
search after the ideal; the backbone of life is going 
towards perfection. We must have that, and, there- 
fore, we cannot be agnostics, or take the world as it 
appears. The agnostic position takes this life minus 
this latter component, to be all that exists, and this 
he claims cannot be known, wherefore he must give 
up the search. This is what is called Maya, this 
Nature, this Universe. This according to the Vedan- 
tist is Nature. 

All religions are more or less attempts to get beyond 
nature, the crudest, or the most developed, expressed 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 7I 

through mythology, or symbology, or through the 
abstractions of philosophy, through stories of gods, 
or angels, or demons; through stories of saints, or 
seers, or great men, or prophets, all have that one 
object, all are trying to get beyond these limitations, 
to find something better and higher. In one word, 
they are all struggling towards freedom. Man feels, 
consciously or unconsciously, that he is bound; that 
he is not what he wants to be. It was taught to him 
at the very moment he began to look around; that 
very instant he learned that he was bound, and he also 
found that there was something in him which wanted 
to fly beyond, where the body could not follow, some- 
thing which was as yet chained down by this limita- 
tion. Even in the lowest of religious ideas, where 
departed ancestors, and other spirits, mostly violent 
and cruel, lurking about the houses of their friends, 
fond of bloodshed and strong drink — even there we 
find that one common factor, that of freedom. The 
man who wants to worship the gods, sees in them 
above all things greater freedom than in himself. If 
a door is closed, he imagines that the gods can get 
through walls and so on ; the walls have no limitations 
for them. This one idea of liberty is increasing, until 
it comes to the ideal of a Personal God, of which the 
central concept is that God is a Being beyond the limi- 
tation of Nature, of mayd. I hear, as it were, a voice, 
before me, I feel as if this question were being dis-) 
cussed by those ancient sages of India, in some of^' 
those forest retreats, and in one of them even the 
oldest and the holiest fail to reach the solution, but 
a young boy is standing up in the midst of them and 



72 JNANA YOGA 

declaring: *'Hear ye children of immortality, hear ye 
who live in the highest places, I have found the way. 
There is a way out beyond the darkness by knowing 
Him who is beyond this darkness." 

This mdya is everywhere, it is terrible; to work 
through mdyd is impossible. If a man says I will 
sit beside this great river and I wiU ford the river 
when all the water has run down into the ocean, that 
man would be as likely to succeed as the man who 
says he will work till this world has become all good, 
and then he will enjoy this world. Great Ganges 
herself might sooner run dry than the world become 
all good! The way is not with mdyd but against 
mdyd. This is another fact to learn. We are not 
born helpers of Nature, but competitors with Nature. 
We are the bondmasters, and we are trying to bind 
ourselves down. Why is this house here? Nature 
did not give it. Nature says go and live in the forest. 
Man says I will build a house and fight with Nature, 
and he does. The whole history of humanity is a 
continuous fight against the so-called laws of Nature, 
and man gains in the end. Coming to the internal 
world, there, too, the same fight is going on, this fight 
between the animal man and the spiritual man, 
between light and darkness, and here, too, man 
becomes victorious. He, as it were, cuts his way out 
of Nature to his idea of freedom. We have seen so 
far, then, that here is a statement of mdyd, and beyond 
this mdyd the Vedantic philosophers find something 
which is not bound by mdyd, and if we can get where 
that stands, certainly we shall be beyond mdyd. This, 
in some form or other, is the common property of all 



MAYA AND ILLUSION 73 

religions, and is what is called Theism. But with the 
Vedanta, it is the beginning of religion and not the 
end. The idea of a personal God, the Ruler and 
Creator of this Universe, as He has been styled, the 
Ruler of mdyd, or Nature, is not the end of these 
Vedantic ideas, it is only the beginning, and the idea 
grows and grows until the Vedantist finds that He 
who was standing outside was he himself, and was 
in reality inside. It was the very one who is free, 
who through limitation thought he was bound. 



MAYA AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE 
CONCEPTION OF GOD 

We have seen how the idea of Mdydj which forms, 
as it were, one of the basic doctrines of the Advaita 
Vedanta, is, in its germ, found even in the Samhitas, 
and that in reaHty all the ideas which are developed 
in the Upanishads are to be found already in the 
Samhitas in some form or other. Most of you are 
by this time perfectly acquainted with the idea of 
Maya, and know that it is sometimes very erroneously 
explained as illusion, so that when the universe is 
said to be Maya, that also would have to be explained 
as being illusion. The translation of the word is 
neither happy nor correct. Maya is not a theory, it 
is simply a statement of facts about the universe as 
it exists, and to understand Maya we must go back 
to the Samhitas and begin with the conception in the 
germ. We have seen how the ideas of the Devas 
came. At the same time these Devas were at first 
only powerful beings, nothing more. Most of you 
are horrified when reading the old scriptures, whether 
of the Greeks, the Hebrews, the Persians, or others, 
to find that the ancient gods sometimes did things 
which, to us, are very repugnant, but when reading 
these books, we entirely forget that we are persons of 

74 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 75 

the nineteenth century, and these gods were beings 
existing thousands of years ago, and we also forget 
that the people who worshipped these gods found 
nothing incongruous in their characters, found nothing 
to frighten them in depicting their gods as they did, 
because they were very much like them themselves. 
I may also remark that this is the one great lesson 
we have to learn throughout our lives. In judging 
others we always judge them by our own ideals. That 
is not as it should be. Every one must be judged 
according to his own ideal, and not by that of any 
one else. In all our dealings with our fellow-beings 
we constantly labor under this mistake, and I am of 
the opinion that the vast majority of our quarrels 
with our fellow-beings arise simply from this one 
cause, that we are always trying to judge other gods 
by our own, other ideals by our ideals, and others* 
motives from our motives. Under certain circum- 
stances I might do a certain thing, and when I see 
another person taking the same course I think he has 
also the same motive actuating him, little dreaming 
that although the effect may be the same, yet many 
thousands of causes may produce the same effect. 
He may have performed the action with quite a dif- 
ferent motive from what would impel me to do the 
same thing. So in judging of those ancient religions 
we must not take the ordinary standpoint to which 
we incline in our judgment of others, but must throw 
ourselves, as it were, into the position of thought in 
those early times. 

The idea of the cruel and ruthless Jehovah in the 
Old Testament has frightened many — but why? 



^6 JNANA YOGA 

What right have they to assume that the Jehovah of 
the ancient Jews must represent the conventional idea 
of God of the present day? And at the same time 
we must not forget that there will come men after us 
who will laugh at our ideas of religion and God in 
the same way that we laugh at those of the ancients. 
Yet through all these various conceptions runs the 
golden thread of unity, and it is the purpose of the 
Vedanta to unfold this thread. "I am the thread that 
runs through all these various ideas, each one of which 
is like one pearl," says the Lord Krishna ; and it is the 
duty of Vedanta to establish this connecting thread, 
however incongruous, hideous, horrible, or disgusting 
may seem these ideas when judged according to the 
conceptions of to-day. When these ideas had the set- 
ting of past times they were harmonious, they were 
not more hideous than our present ideas. It is only 
when we try to take them out of these settings and 
apply them to our own present circumstances that the 
hideousness becomes obvious. It is all dead and gone 
and past. Just as the old Jew has developed into the 
keen, modern, sharp Jew, and the ancient Aryan into 
the intellectual Hindu, similarly Jehovah has grown, 
and Devas have grown. The great mistake is in 
recognizing the evolution of the worshippers, while 
we do not acknowledge the evolution of the God. He 
is not credited with the advance that his devotees have 
made. That is to say, you and I, as representing 
ideas, have grown; these gods also, as representing 
ideas, have grown. This may seem somewhat curious 
to you — how can God grow? He cannot. He is 
unchangeable, but man's ideas about God are con- 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 7/ 

stantly changing and expanding. In the same sense 
the real man never grows. We will see later on how 
the real man behind each one of these manifestations 
is immovable, unchangeable, pure, and always perfect ; 
and in the same way the idea that we form of God 
is a mere manifestation, our own creation. Behind 
that is the real God who never changes, the ever pure, 
the immutable. But the manifestations are always 
changing, revealing the reality behind more and more. 
When it reveals more of the fact behind, it is called 
progression; when it hides more of the fact behind, 
it is called retrogression. Thus, as we grow, so the 
gods grow. From the common-sense point of view, 
just as we reveal ourselves as we evolve, so the gods 
reveal themselves. 

We shall now be in a position to understand the 
theory of Maya. In stating all the religions of the 
world one question they propose to discuss is this : 
Why is there disharmony in the universe? Why is 
there evil in the universe? We do not find this ques- 
tion in the very primitive inception of religious ideas 
because the world did not appear incongruous to the 
primitive man. Circumstances around him were not 
inharmonious; there was no clash of opinions; no 
antagonism of good and evil. There was merely the 
fight in his own heart between something which said 
yea, and something which said nay. The primitive 
man was a man of impulse. He did what occurred 
to him, and tried to bring out into his muscles what- 
ever thought came into his mind. He never stopped 
to judge, and seldom tried to check his impulses. So 
with the gods, they also were creatures of impulse. 



78 J NANA YOGA 

Indra comes and shatters the forces of the demons. 
Jehovah is pleased with one person and displeased 
with another, for what reason no one knows or asks; 
for the habit of inquiry had not then arisen, and what- 
ever he did was regarded as right. There was no 
idea of good or evil. The Devas did many wicked 
things in our sense of the word; again and again 
Indra and other gods committed very wicked deeds, 
but to the worshippers of Indra the ideas of wicked- 
ness and evil did not occur, so they did not question. 

With the advance of ethical ideas came the fight. 
There arose a certain sense in man; different lan- 
guages and nations called it by different names, and 
it acted as a checking power; for the impulses of the 
human heart are the voice of God, or the result of 
past education, but whatever it is called the effect is 
the same. There is one impulse in our minds which 
says : "do." Behind it rises another voice which says : 
"do not." There is one set of ideas in our mind which 
is always struggling to get outside through the chan- 
nels of the senses, and behind that, although it may 
be thin and weak, an infinitely small voice which 
says do not go outside. The two beautiful Sanskrit 
words for these phenomena are pravritti and nivritti, 
"circling forward" and "circling inward." It is the 
circling forward which usually governs our actions. 
Religion begins with the circling inward. Religion 
begins with this "do not." Spirituality begins with 
this "do not." When the "do not" is not there, 
religion has not begun. And this "do not" came, 
causing men's ideas to grow despite the brutal fighting 
gods which they had made. 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 79 

A little love awoke in the hearts of mankind. It 
was very small indeed, and even now it is not much 
greater. It was at first confined to the tribe, embrac- 
ing perhaps members of the same tribe; these gods 
loved their tribes and each god was a tribal god, the 
protector of that tribe. And sometimes the members 
of those tribes would think of themselves as the 
descendants of that god, just as the clans in different 
nations think that they are the common descendants 
of some one who was the founder of the clan. There 
were in ancient times, and are even now, some people 
claiming to be descendants not only of these gods, 
but also of the Sun and Moon. You read in the 
ancient Sanskrit books of the great heroic emperors 
of the solar dynasty. They were first worshippers 
of the Moon and Sun, and gradually came to think 
of themselves as descendants of the god of the Sun, 
of the Moon, and so forth. So when these tribal ideas 
began to grow there came a little love, some slight 
idea of duties towards each other, a little social organ- 
ization, and immediately began the idea, how can we 
live together without bearing and forbearing? How 
can one man live with another man — even one — 
without having some time or other to check his 
impulses, restrain himself, forbear from doing things 
which his mind would prompt him to do. It is impos- 
sible. Thus comes the idea of restraint. The whole 
social fabric is based upon that idea of restraint, and 
we all know that the man or woman who has not 
learned the great lesson of bearing and forbearing, 
leads a most miserable life. 

Now when these ideas of religion came, a glimpse 



80 J NANA YOGA 

of something higher, more ethical, dawned upon the 
intellect of mankind. The old gods were found to 
be incongruous, these boisterous, fighting, drinking, 
beef-eating gods of the ancients, whose delight was 
in the smell of burning flesh and libations of strong 
liquor. Sometimes Indra drank so much that he fell 
upon the ground and began to talk unintelligently. 
These gods could no longer be tolerated. The notion 
had arisen of inquiring into motives, and the gods 
had to come in for their share of inquiry. What is 
the reason for such an action of such and such a 
god? — ^and the reason was wanting. Therefore men 
gave up these gods, or rather they developed higher 
ideas concerning them; they collected together and 
discarded all the actions and qualities of the gods 
which they could not harmonize, and they kept those 
which they could understand and harmonize, and com- 
bining these, labelled them with one name, Deva-deva, 
the God of gods of the universe. The god to be wor- 
shipped was no more a simple symbol of power ; some- 
thing more was required than power. He was an 
ethical god; he loved mankind, did good to mankind. 
But the idea of god still remained. They increased 
his ethical significance, and increased also his power. 
He became the most ethical being in the Universe, 
as well as almost almighty. 

But all this patchwork would not do. As the 
explanation assumed greater proportion, the difficulty 
which it sought to solve did the same. If the qualities 
of the god increased in arithmetical progression, the 
difficulty and doubt increased in geometrical progres- 
sion. The difficulty of Jehovah was very little beside 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 8 1 

the difficulty of the god of the universe, and this 
question remains to the present day. Why, under the 
reign of an almighty and all loving God of the Uni- 
verse, should such diabolical things be allowed to 
remain ? Why so much more misery than happiness ? 
and so much more wickedness than good? We may 
shut our eyes to all these things, but the fact still 
remains, this world is a hideous world. At best it is 
the hell of Tantalus and nothing else. Here we are 
with strong impulses, and stronger cravings for sense 
enjoyments and nothing outside to satisfy them. 
There rises a wave which impels us forward in spite 
of our own will, and as soon as we move one step 
comes a blow. We are all doomed to live here and 
die here like Tantalus. Ideals come into our head, 
far beyond the limit of our sense ideals, but when 
we seek to express them, we never can see them ful- 
filled. On the other hand, we are crushed into atoms 
by the surging mass around us. Yet if I give up all 
ideality and merely struggle through this world, my 
existence is that of a brute, and I degenerate and 
degrade myself. Neither way is happiness. Unhap- 
piness is the fate of those who are content to live in 
this world born as they are. A thousandfold unhap- 
piness is the fate of those who dare to stand forth for 
truth and for higher things, and who dare to ask for 
something higher than mere brute existence here. 
These are the facts; there is no explanation. There 
cannot be any explanation, but Vedanta shows the 
way out. You must bear in mind that I must tell 
you facts in this course which will frighten you some- 
times, but remember what I say, think of it, digest it. 



82 J NANA YOGA 

and it will be yours, it will raise you high, and make 
you capable of understanding and living in truth. 

Now this is a statement of fact, not a theory, that 
this world is a Tantalus' hell, that we do not know 
anything about this Universe, yet at the same time we 
cannot say that we do not know. I cannot say that 
this chain exists, when I think of it I do not know. 
It may be an entire delusion in my brain. I may be 
dreaming all the time. I am dreaming that I am 
talking to you, and that you are listening to me. No 
one can prove that it is not a dream. My brain itself 
may be a dream, and as to that, no one has ever seen 
his own brain yet. We all take that for granted. So 
it is with everything. My own body I take for 
granted. At the same time I cannot say I do not 
know. This standing between knowledge and ignor- 
ance, this mystic twilight, the mingling of truth and 
falsehood, where they meet no one knows. We are 
walking in the midst of a dream, half sleeping, half 
waking, passing all our lives in a haze, this is the fate 
of every one of us. This is the fate of all sense 
knowledge. This is the fate of all philosophy, of all 
boasted science, of all boasted human knowledge. 
This is the Universe. 

What you call matter, or spirit, or mind, or any- 
thing else you may like to call them, any nickname 
you may choose to give them, the fact remains the 
same, we cannot say they are; we cannot say they 
are not. We cannot say they are one, we cannot 
say they are many. This eternal play of light and 
darkness, indiscriminate, indistinguishable, inseparable 
is always there. A fact, yet at the same time, not a 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 83 

fact, awake, and at the same time, asleep. This is a 
statement of facts, and this is what is called Maya. 
We are born in this Maya, we live in it, we think in 
it, we dream in it. We are philosophers in it, we are 
spiritual men in it, nay, we are devils in this Maya, 
and we are gods in this Maya. Stretch your ideas 
as far as you can, make them higher and higher, call 
it infinite or by any other name you please, even that 
idea is within this Maya. It cannot be otherwise, 
and the whole of human knowledge is generalization 
of this Maya, trying to know it as it really is. This 
is the work of Ndma-Rupa — name and form. Every- 
thing that has form, everything that calls up an idea 
in your mind, is within Maya, for, everything that 
is bound by what the German philosophers call the 
laws of time, space, and causation, is within Maya. 

Let us go back a little to those earlier ideas of God, 
and see what became of them. We perceive at once 
that with such a state of things the idea of some being 
who is eternally loving us — the word love in our sense 
— eternally unselfish and almighty, ruling this universe, 
cannot be. It requires the boldness of the poet to 
withstand this idea of the personal God. Where is 
your just, merciful God? the poet asks. Does he not 
see millions and millions of his children perish, either 
in the form of men, or of animals; for who can live 
one moment here without killing others? Can you 
draw a breath without destroying thousands of lives? 
You live because millions die. Every moment of 
your life, every breath that you breathe, is death to 
thousands, every movement that you make is death 
unto millions. Every morsel that you eat is death 



84 J NANA YOGA 

unto millions. Why should they die? There is an 
old sophism, "But they are very low existences." 
Supposing they are; it is a question. Who knows 
whether the ant is greater than man, or the man than 
the ant? Who can prove one way or the other? 
Man can build a house or invent a machine, therefore 
the man is greater! The same argument will apply, 
because the ant cannot build a house nor make a 
machine, therefore he is greater. There is no more 
reason for one than for the other. 

Apart from that question, even taking it for granted 
that these are very low beings, still why should they 
die? If they are low they ought to live the more. 
Why not? Because they live more in the senses, 
they feel pleasure and pain a thousandfold more than 
you or I can. Which of you can eat a dinner with 
the same gusto as a dog or a wolf? Because our 
energies are not in the senses, they are in the intellect, 
the spirit. But in the dog the whole soul is in the 
senses, and they become mad, enthusiastic, enjoy 
things which we human beings can never dream of, 
and the pain is commensurate with the pleasure. 

Pleasure and pain are meted out in equal measure. 
If the pleasures felt by animals are so much keener 
than those felt by man, it follows absolutely that the 
animals' sense of pain is as keen, if not keener than 
that in men ; and they have to die. So the fact is 
that the pain and misery men would feel in dying is 
intensified a thousandfold in animals, and yet we have 
to kill them, without troubling about their misery. 
This is Maya, and if we suppose there is a personal 
God like a human being, who made all, these so-called 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 85 

explanations and theories which try to prove that out 
of evil comes good are not sufficient. Let twenty; 
thousand good things come, why should they come 
from evil? On that principle I might cut the throats 
of others because I want the full pleasure of my five 
senses. That is no reason. Why should good come 
through evil? The question remains to be answered, 
and it cannot be answered; and philosophy in India 
was compelled to admit this. 

The Vedanta is the boldest system of religion. It 
stopped nowhere, and it had one advantage. There 
was no body of priests seeking to suppress every man 
who tried to tell the truth. There was always abso- 
lute religious freedom. In India the bondage of super- 
stition was a social one; here society is very free. 
Social matters in India have not been free, but religious 
opinion has. In England a man may dress as he 
likes, or eat what he likes — no one says nay, or objects ; 
but if he misses attending his church then Mrs. Grundy 
is down on him. He has to look a thousand times at 
what society says, and then think of the truth. In 
India, on the other hand, if a man dines with another 
who does not belong to his own caste, down comes 
society with all its terrible power^ and crushes him 
then and there. If he wants to dress a little differently 
from the way in which his ancestor dressed ages ago 
he is done for. I have heard of a man who was out- 
casted because he went several miles to see the first 
railway train. Well, we will presume that that was 
not true! On the other hand, in religion, we find 
Atheists, and Materialists, and Buddhists, and creeds 
and opinions, and speculations of every phase and 



86 J NANA YOGA 

variety; some of a most startling character. Men 
going about preaching and gaining adherents, and at 
the very gates of the temple full of all the gods, the 
Brahmins — to their credit be it said — allow even the 
Materialist to stand on the steps of their temples and 
denounce their gods. 

Buddha died at a ripe old age. I remember a friend 
of mine, a great American scientist, who was fond 
of reading his life. He did not like the death of 
Buddha, because he was not crucified. What a false 
idea! For a man to be great he must be murdered! 
Such ideas never prevailed in India. This great 
Buddha travelled all over India denouncing all gods, 
and even their God, the Governor of the Universe, and 
he died at a ripe old age. Eighty-five years he lived, 
until he had converted half the country. 

There were the Chdrvdkas, who preached the most 
horrible things; the most rank, undisguised mate- 
rialism, such as in the nineteenth century they dare 
not preach openly. These Chdrvdkas were allowed to 
preach from temple to temple, and city to city, that 
religion was all nonsense, that it was priestcraft, that 
the Vedas were the words and writings of fools, 
rogues and demons, and that there was neither God 
nor an eternal soul. If there were a soul why did 
it not come back after death, drawn by love of wife 
and children? Their idea was that if there was a 
soul it must still love after death, and want nice things 
to eat and nice dresses. Yet no one hurt these 
Chdrvdkas. 

Thus India has always had this magnificent idea 
of religious freedom — for you must always remember 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 8/ 

that freedom is the first condition of growth. What 
you do not make free will never grow. The whole 
of that idea that you can make others grow, and help 
their growth, can direct and guide them, always retain- 
ing for yourself the freedom of the teacher, is non- 
sense, a dangerous lie, which has retarded the growth 
of millions and millions of human beings in this world. 
Let men have the light of liberty. That is the only 
condition of growth. 

We, in India, allowed liberty in spiritual matters, 
and we have a tremendous spiritual power in religious 
thought, even to-day. You grant the same liberty in 
social matters, and so have a splendid social organiza- 
tion. We have not given any freedom to the expan- 
sion of social matters, and ours is a cramped society. 
You have never given any freedom in religious matters. 
With fire and sword you have enforced your beliefs, 
and the result is that religion is a stunted, degenerate 
growth in the European mind. In India we have to 
take off the shackles from society; in Europe the 
chains must be taken from the feet of spiritual pro- 
gress. Then will come a wonderful growth and 
development of men. If we discover that there is 
one unity running behind all these developments, either 
spiritual, moral or social, we shall find that religion 
in the full sense of the word must come into society, 
must come into our every day lives. In the light of 
Vedanta you will understand that all your sciences 
are but manifestations of religion, and so is every- 
thing that exists in this world. 

We see then that through freedom these sciences 
were built, and in them we have two sets of opinions 



88 JNANA YOGA 

growing slowly in the teaching of the Vedanta, the 
one about which I have just told you, that of the 
materialists, the denouncers, and the other the positive, 
the constructive. This again is a most curious fact; 
in every society you find it. Supposing there is an 
evil in society. You will find immediately one group 
rising up and beginning to denounce it in vindictive 
fashion. This sometimes degenerates into fanaticism. 
You always find fanatics in every society,, and women 
frequently join in these outcries, because they are 
impulsive in their nature. Every fanatic who gets 
up and denounces something secures a following. It 
is very easy to break down; a manaic can break any- 
thing he likes, but it would be hard for him to build 
anything in this world. 

So there is this set of denouncers in every country, 
present in some form or other, and they think they will 
mend this world by the sheer power of denunciation 
and of exposing evil; they do some good, according 
to their light, but much more harm, because things 
are not done in a day. Social institutions are not 
made in a day, and to change means removing the 
cause. Suppose there is evil here; denouncing it will 
not do anything, but you must go to work at the root. 
First find out the cause, then remove it, and the effect 
will be removed also. All this outcry will not produce 
any effect, unless indeed it produces misfortune. 

There were others who had sympathy in their hearts 
and who understood the idea that we must go deep 
into the cause, and these were the great saints. One 
fact you must remember, that all the great teachers 
of the world have declared that they came not to 



MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 89 

destroy but to fulfil. Many times this has not been 
understood, and their forbearance has been thought 
to be an unworthy compromise with existing popular 
opinions. Even now, you occasionally hear that these 
prophets and great teachers were rather cowardly, 
dared not say and do what they thought was right; 
but it was not so. Fanatics little understand the 
infinite power of love in the hearts of these great 
sages. They looked upon the inhabitants of this world 
as their children. They were the real fathers, the 
real gods, filled with infinite sympathy and patience 
for every one, they were ready to bear and forbear. 
They knew how human society should grow, and 
patiently, slowly, surely, went on applying their rem- 
edies, not by denouncing and not by frightening people, 
but by gently and kindly leading them step by step. 
Such were the writers of the Upanishads. They knew 
full well how the old ideas of God were not recon- 
cilable with the advanced ethical ideas of the time; 
they knew perfectly well that truth was not on that 
side of the question, but on the other side ; they knew 
full well that what the Buddhists and the other atheists 
were preaching contained a good deal of truth, nay, 
great nuggets of truth, but, at the same time, they 
understood that those who wish to sever the thread 
that binds the beads, who want to build a new society 
upon the air, will entirely fail. 

We never build anew, we simply change places, we 
cannot have anything new, we only change the posi- 
tions of things. The seed grows into the tree, and 
patiently, gently, we must direct the energies towards 
truth, and fulfil the truth that exists, not try to make 



90 J NANA YOGA 

new truths. Thus, instead of denouncing these old 
ideas of God as unfit for modern times, these ancient 
sages began to seek out the reality that was in them, 
and the result was the Vedanta Philosophy, and out 
of the old deities, out of the monotheistic God, Ruler 
of the Universe, they found yet higher and higher 
ideas in what is called the Impersonal Absolute; they 
found One-ness throughout the Universe. '*'He who ^ 
sees in this world of manifoldness that One running 
through all ; in this world of death, he who finds that 
one Infinite Life ; and in this world of insentience and 
ignorance, he who finds that one Light and Knowledge, 
unto him belongs eternal peace. Unto none else, unto^ 
none else." 



VI 
MAYA AND FREEDOM 

"Trailing clouds of glory we come/' says the poet. 
Not all of us come trailing clouds of glory however, 
some of us come also trailing black fogs behind us; 
there can be no question about that. But every one 
of us is sent into this world as on to the battlefield 
to fight. We must come here weeping to fight our 
way, as well as we can, to make a path through this 
infinite ocean of life without leaving any track; for- 
ward we go, long ages behind us, and immense the 
expanse beyond. So on we go, till death comes, takes 
us ofl: the field, victorious or defeated, we do not know, 
and this is Maya. 

Hope is dominant in the heart of childhood. The 
whole is a golden vision to the opening eyes of the 
child; his will he thinks is supreme. As he moves 
onward, at every step nature stands as an adaman- 
tine wall barring his further progress. He may hurl 
himself against it again and again, striving to break 
through. Through his life the farther he goes, the 
farther recedes the ideal until death comes, and there 
is release perhaps, and this is Mdya. 

A man of science rises, he is thirsting after knowl- 
edge. No sacrifice is too great, no struggle too hope- 
less for him. He moves onward discovering secret 

91 



92 JNANA YOGA 

after secret of Nature, searching out the secrets from 
the innermost heart of Nature, and what for ? What 
is it all for ? Why should we give him glory ? Why 
should he acquire fame? Does not Nature know 
infinitely more than any human being can know, and 
Nature is dull, insentient. Why should it be glory 
to imitate the dull, the insentient? Nature can hurl 
a thunderbolt of any magnitude to any distance. If 
a man can do one small part as much we praise him, 
laud him up to the skies, and why? Why should we 
praise him for imitating Nature, imitating death, imi- 
tating dulness, imitating insentience? The force of 
gravitation can pull to pieces the biggest mass that 
ever existed; yet it is insentient. What glory is in 
imitating the insentient? Yet we are all struggling 
after that, and this is Maya. 

The senses drag the human soul out. Man is ask- 
ing for pleasure, for happiness where it can never be 
found; for countless ages every one of us is taught 
that this is futile and vain, there is no happiness here. 
But we cannot learn; it is impossible for us to learn, 
except through our own experience. We try them, 
and a blow comes ; do we learn then ? Not even then. 
Like moths hurling themselves against the flame we 
are hurling ourselves again and again into sense 
pleasures, hoping to find satisfaction there. We 
return again and again with freshened energy; thus 
we go on till crippled, cheated, we die, and this is 
Maya. 

So with our intellect, in our desire to solve the mys- 
teries of the universe, we cannot stop our questioning, 
we must know; and cannot believe that there is no 



MAYA AND FREEDOM 93 

knowledge to be gained. A few steps, and there arises 
the wall of beginningless and endless time which we 
cannot surmount. A few steps and there appears a 
wall of boundless space which cannot be surmounted, 
and the whole is irrevocably bound in by the walls of 
cause and effect. We cannot go beyond them. Yet 
we struggle; we have to struggle; and this is Maya. 

With every breath, with every pulsation of the heart, 
with every one of our movements, we think we are 
free, and the very same moment we are shown that we 
are not. Bound slaves. Nature's bond-slaves, in body, 
in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings, and 
this is Maya. 

There was never a mother who did not think her. 
child a genius, the most extraordinary child that was 
ever born ; she dotes upon her child. Her whole soul 
is in that child. It grows up, perhaps becomes a 
drunkard, a brute, ill-treats the mother, and the more 
he ill-treats her the more her love increases. The 
world lauds it as the unselfish love of the mother, 
little dreaming that the mother is a born slave, she 
cannot help herself. She would throw it off a thou- 
sand times, but cannot. So she covers it with a mass 
of flowers, calls it wonderful love, and this is Maya. 

So are we all in this world, and the legend tells how 
once Narada said to Krishna, "Lord, show me Maya." 
A few days passed away, and Krishna asked Narada 
to make a trip with him towards a desert, and after 
walking for several miles Krishna said, "Narada, I 
am thirsty; can you fetch some water to me?" I 
will go at once, sir, and get you water." So Narada 
went. At a little distance from the place there was a 



94 J NANA YOGA 

village ; he entered the village in search of some water, 
and knocked at a door, the door opened and a most 
beautiful young girl appeared. At the sight of her he 
immediately forgot that his master was waiting, thirs- 
ty, perhaps dying for want of water. He forgot 
everything, and began to talk with the girl. All that 
day he did not return to his master. The next day 
he was again at the house talking to the girl. That 
talk ripened into love, he asked the father for the 
daughter, and they were married, and lived there and 
had children. Thus twelve years passed. His father- 
in-law died, he inherited his property, and lived, as he 
seemed to think, a very happy life with his wife and 
children, his fields and his cattle, his lands and his 
house. Then came a flood. One night the river rose 
until^ it overflowed its banks and flooded the whole of 
the village. Houses began to fall, men and animals 
were swept away and drowned, and everything was 
floating in the rush of the stream. Narada had to 
escape. With one hand he had hold of his wife, with 
the other two of his children, another child was on 
his shoulders, and he was trying to ford this tremen- 
dous flood. 

After a few steps the current was too strong, and 
the child on his shoulders fell and was borne away. 
A cry of despair came from Narada. In trying to 
save that child he lost his grasp upon one of the others 
he was holding, and it also was lost. At last his wife, 
to whom he had clung with all his might and main 
to save her life, was also torn away by the current, and 
weeping and wailing he was thrown on the bank, 
where he fell upon the ground with bitter lamenta- 



MAYA AND FREEDOM 95 

tions. Behind him there came a gentle voice: "My; 
child, where is the water? You went to fetch a 
pitcher of water, and I am waiting for you ; you have 
been gone about half an hour." "Half an hour!" 
Twelve whole years had passed through his mind, and 
all these scenes had passed by in that half an hour — 
and this is Maya. In one shape or another we are all 
in it. It is a most difficult and intricate state of things 
to understand. What does it show ? Something very 
terrible, which has been preached in every country, 
taught everywhere and only believed by a few, because 
until we get the experiences ourselves we cannot believe 
in it. After all, it is all futile. 

Time, the avenger of everything, comes, and noth- 
ing is left. He swallows up the sin and the sinner, 
the king and the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly; 
he leaves none. Everything is rushing towards that 
one goal, destruction. Our knowledge, our arts, our 
sciences, everything is rushing towards that one in- 
evitable goal of all, destruction. None can stem the 
tide, none can hold it back for a minute. We may 
try to forget it, just as we hear of persons in a plague- 
stricken city becoming paralyzed, trying to create 
oblivion by drinking and dancing, and other vain 
devices. So we are all trying hard to forget it, try- 
ing to create oblivion with all sorts of sense pleasures. 
And this is Maya. 

Two ways of living have been proposed. There is 
one method very common, which every one knows, and 
that is to say, "It may be very true, but do not think 
of it. *Make hay while the sun shines,' as the pro- 
verb says. It is all true ; it is a fact ; but do not mind 



96 J NANA YOGA 

it. Seize the few pleasures you have, do what Httle 
you can, do not think of this negative side of the 
picture, always look towards the hopeful, the positive 
side." There is some truth in this, but there is also 
danger. The truth is that it is a good motive power ; 
hope and a positive ideal are very good motive powers 
for our lives, but there is a certain danger in them. 
The danger lies in our giving up the struggle in 
despair, as is the case with every one who preaches: 
**Take the world as it is ; sit down calmly, as comforta- 
bly as you can, and be contented with all these mis- 
eries, and when you receive blows, say they are not 
blows but flowers, and when you are driven about like 
a slave, say that you are free, just tell lies day and 
night to others and to your own souls, because that is 
the only way to live." This is what is called practi- 
cal wisdom, and never was it more before the world 
than in this nineteenth century, because never were 
blows hitting harder than at the present time, never 
was competition keener, never were men so cruel to 
their fellow-men as now, and therefore is this conso- 
lation offered. It is strongest at the present time, 
and it fails, it always fails. We cannot hide carrion 
with roses ; it is impossible. It would not avail long ; 
one day the roses would vanish, and the carrion would 
become worse than ever before. So with all our lives ; 
we may try to cover our old and festering sores with 
cloth of gold, but there will come a day when the 
cloth of gold is removed, and the sore in all its ugli- 
ness is revealed. Is there no hope? True it is that 
we are all slaves of Maya, we are all born in Maya, 
we live in Maya. 



MAYA AND FREEDOM 97 

Is there then no way out, no hope? That we are 
all miserable, that this world is really a prison, that 
even our so-called trailing beauty is but a prison- 
house, and that even our intellects and minds are 
prison-houses, has been known for ages upon ages. 
There has not been a man, there has not been a 
human soul, who has not felt it some time or other, 
however he may talk. And the old people feel it most, 
because in them is the accumulated experience of a 
whole life, because they cannot be easily cheated by 
the lies of Nature; Maya's lies cannot cheat them 
much. What of them? Is there no way out? We 
find that with all this, with this terrible fact before 
us, in the midst of all this sorrow and suffering, even 
in this world, where life and death are synonymous, 
even here there is a voice that is going through all 
ages, through all countries, and through every heart. 
"This my Maya is divine, made up of qualities, and 
very difficult to cross. Yet those that come unto Me, 
I cause them to cross this river of life." "Come unto 
Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest.'* This is the voice that is leading us 
forward. Man has heard it, and is hearing it all 
through the ages. This voice comes to men when 
everything seems to be lost, and hope is flying away, 
when man's dependence on his own strength has been 
crushed down, when everything seems to melt away 
between his fingers, and life is a hopeless ruin. Then 
he hears it. This is called Religion. 

On the one side, therefore, is the bold assertion, the 
most hopeful assertion, to realize that this is all non- 
sense, that this is Maya, but that beyond Maya there 



98 JNANA YOGA 

is a way out. On the other hand our practical men 
tell us "Don't you bother your heads about such non- 
sense as religion and metaphysics. Live here; this 
is a very bad world indeed, but make the best of it." 
Which put in plain language means — live a hypocriti- 
cal, lying life, a life of continuous fraud, covering all 
sores the best way you can. Go on, patch after patch, 
until everything is lost, and you are a mass of patch- 
work. This is what is called practical life. Those 
that are satisfied with this patchwork will never come 
to Religion. Religion begins with a tremendous dis- 
satisfaction with the present state of things, with our 
own lives, a hatred, an intense hatred, for this patch- 
ing up of life, an unbounded disgust for fraud and 
lies. He alone can be religious who dares stand up 
and say as the mighty Buddha once said under the 
Bo-tree, when this idea of practicality appeared also 
before him and he saw that it was nonsense, and yet 
could not find a way out. The temptation came to 
give up his search, to give up the search after truth, 
to go back to the world and live the old life of fraud, 
calling things by wrong names, telling lies to oneself 
and to everybody — once came this temptation, but he, 
the giant, conquered it, and said : "Death is better than 
a vegetating ignorant life; it is better to die on the 
battlefield than to live a life of defeat." That is the 
basis of Religion. When a man takes that stand he 
is in the way to find the truth, he is on the way to 
God. That determination must be the first impulse 
towards becoming religious. I will hew out a way 
for myself. I will know the truth, or give up my life 
in the attempt. For on this side it is nothing, it is 



MAYA AND FREEDOM 99 

gone, it is vanishing every hour. The beautiful, hope- 
ful young person of to-day is the veteran of to-morrow. 
Hopes and joys and pleasures will die like blossoms 
with to-morrow's frost. That is this side; on the 
other side there are the delights of conquest, victories 
over all the ills of life, victories over life itself, the 
conquering of the universe. On that side men can 
stand. Those who dare, therefore, to struggle for 
victory, for truth, for religion, are in the right way, 
and this is what the Vedas preach. "Be not in 
despair; the way is very difficult; it is, as it were, 
walking on the blade of a razor. Yet, despair not, 
awake, arise, and find the ideal, the goal." 

Now all the various manifestations of religion, in 
whatever shape and form they have come to man- 
kind, have this one common central basis. It is the 
preaching of freedom, the way out of this world. 
They never came to reconcile the world and religion, 
but to cut the Gordian knot, to establish religion in 
its own ideal, and not to compromise with the world. 
That is what every religion preaches, and the duty of 
the Vedanta is to harmonize all these aspirations, to 
make manifest the common ground between all the 
religions of the world, the highest as well as the 
lowest. What we call the most arrant superstition and 
the highest philosophy really have a common aim in 
that they both are trying to show the way out of the 
same difficulty, and in most cases this way is through 
the help of some one who is outside this universe, 
some one who is not himself bound by the laws of 
nature, in one word some one who is free. In spite of 
all the difficulties and differences of opinion about the 



lOO JNANA YOGA 

nature of the one free agent, whether he is God, 
whether he is a personal God, whether he is a sentient 
being Hke man, whether he is a conscious being, 
whether mascuhne, feminine, or neuter — ^and the dis- 
cussions have been endless — the fundamental idea is 
the same. In spite of the almost helpless contradic- 
tions of the different systems, we find the golden 
thread of unity running through them all, and in this 
philosophy, this golden thread has been traced, re- 
vealed little by little to our view, and the first step to 
this revelation is this common ground, that all are 
advancing towards freedom. 

One curious fact is present in the midst of all our 
sorrows and joys, our difficulties and struggles, we are 
surely journeying towards freedom. The question 
was practically what is this universe? From what 
does it arise ? Into what does it go ? And the answer 
was, in Freedom it rises, in Freedom it rests, and into 
Freedom it melts away. This curious fact you can- 
not relinquish, your actions, your very lives will be 
lost without it, this idea of freedom, that we are free. 
Every moment nature is proving us to be slaves, and 
not free. Yet, simultaneously rises the other idea 
that still we are free. At every step we are knocked 
down as it were, by Maya, and shown that we are 
bound, yet at the same moment, together with this 
blow, together with this feeling that we are bound, 
comes the other feeling that we are free. Some inner 
voice tells us that we are free. But if we attempt to 
realize this freedom, to make it manifest, we find the 
difficulties almost insuperable. Yet, in spite of that, 
it insists on asserting itself inwardly, "I am free, I am 



MAYA AND FREEDOM lOI 

free." And if you study all the various religions of 
the world you will find this idea expressed. Not only 
Religion — do not take this word in the narrow sense 
— but the whole life of society, is the assertion of that 
one principle of freedom. All movements are the 
assertion of that one freedom. That voice has been 
heard by every one, whether he knows it or not; that 
voice which declares, "Come to me all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden." It may not be in the same 
language, or the same form of speech, but in some 
form or other, that voice calling for freedom has been 
with us. Yes, we are born here on account of that 
voice ; every one of our movements is for that. We are 
all rushing towards freedom, we are all following that 
voice, whether we know it or not : like the flute player 
who attracted the children of the village; we are all 
following the music of the flute without knowing it. 

Why are we ethical but that we must follow that 
voice? Not only the human soul, but all from the 
lowest atom to the highest man, have heard the voice 
and are rushing to meet it; and in the struggle are 
combining with each other, or pushing each other out 
of the way. Thus come competition, joys, struggles, 
life, pleasure and death, and the whole Universe is 
nothing but the result of this mad struggle to reach 
the A^oice. That is what we are doing. This is the 
manifestation of Nature. 

What happens then? The scene begins to shift. 
As soon as you know the voice and understand what 
it is, the whole scene changes. The very world which 
was the ghastly battlefield of Maya is changed into 
something else, into something more beautiful, better. 



I02 JNANA YOGA 

We need not curse nature, we need not say that the 
world is horrible, we need not say it is all vain, we 
need not weep or wail. As soon as we understand 
the voice we see the reason why this struggle should 
be here, this fight, this competition, this difficulty, this 
cruelty, these little pleasures and joys — that they are 
in the nature of things, because we are going towards 
the voice, to attain which we are called, whether we 
know it or not. All human life, all Nature, therefore, 
is struggling to manifest this freedom; the sun is 
moving towards the goal, so is the earth circling round 
the sun, so is the moon circling round the earth. For 
that goal the planet is moving, and the breeze is 
blowing. "For that goal the sun is shining and so 
is the moon, for that goal the wind is blowing and 
thunder is crashing, for that goal death is stalking 
about." They are all struggling towards that. The 
saint is going that way; he cannot help it; it is no 
glory to him. So is the sinner. The most charitable 
man is going straight towards that voice, he -cannot 
stop; the most hopeless miser is going towards the 
same destination; the greatest worker of good hears 
the same voice within, he cannot resist it, he must go 
towards the voice. So with the most arrant idler. 
One stumbles more than another, and he who stum- 
bles more we call weak, he who stumbles less we call 
good. Good and bad are never two different things, 
they are one and the same; the difference is not one 
of -kind, but of degree. 

Now, if the manifestation of this power of freedom 
is really governing the whole universe — applying that 
to religion, our special study — we find this idea has 



MAYA AND FREEDOM IO3 

been the one assertion throughout. Take the lowest 
form of religion, where there is a departed ancestor, 
or certain powerful and cruel gods, and they are 
worshipped; what is the very idea of the god or de- 
parted ancestor? That he is superior to Nature, not 
bound by this Maya. The idea of Nature here is very 
small, of course. The worshipper, an ignorant man, 
of crude ideas, cannot pass through the wall of a room, 
cannot jump up into the skies, or fly through the air, 
and his idea of Nature is one of bondage to superior 
powers; hence the gods whom he worships can pass 
through walls, or the air, or change shape. What is 
meant by that, philosophically ? That the assertion of 
freedom is there, that the gods whom he worships are 
superior to Nature as he knows it. So with those 
who worship still higher beings ; it is the same asser- 
tion. As the view of Nature expands, the view of the 
soul as superior to Nature also expands, and at last 
we cogie to what we call Monotheism — that there is 
Maya, (this Nature,) and that there is some Being who 
is superior to the whole of this Maya, and this is the 
hope. 

Vedanta begins where monotheistic ideas first 
appear, but the Vedanta philosophy wants further 
explanation. This explanation — that there is a Being 
beyond all these manifestations of Maya, who is 
superior to, and independent of Maya, and who is 
attracting us towards Himself, and that we are all 
going towards Him — is very good, says the Vedanta, 
but yet the perception is not clear, the vision is dim 
and hazy, although it does not directly contradict 
reason. Just as in your hymn it is said, "Nearer my 



I04 JNANA YOGA 

God to Thee," the same hymn would be very good to 
the Vedantin, only he would change a word, and make 
it, "Nearer my God to me." The idea that the goal 
is far off, far beyond Nature, attracting us all towards 
it, has to be brought down nearer and nearer, without 
degrading or degenerating it, until it comes closer and 
closer, and the God of Heaven becomes the God in 
Nature, till the God in Nature becomes the God who 
is Nature, and the God who is Nature becomes the God 
within this temple of the body, and the God dwelling 
in the temple of the body, becomes the temple itself, 
becomes the soul of man, and there it reaches the last 
words it can teach. He whom the sages have been 
seeking in all these places is in our own hearts. The 
voice that you heard was right, says the Vedanta, but 
the direction you gave to the voice was wrong. That 
ideal of freedom that you perceived was correct, but 
you projected it outside yourself, and that was your 
mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you will 
find that it was all the time within you, that it is the 
Self of your own self. That freedom is your own 
nature, and this Maya never found you. Nature 
never had power over you. Like a frightened child 
you were dreaming that it was throttling you, and the 
release from this fear is the goal ; not only to see it 
intellectually, but to perceive it, actualize it, much 
more definitely than we perceive this world. Then we 
shall know that we are free. Then, and then alone, 
will all difficulties vanish, then will all the perplexi- 
ties of the heart be smoothed away, all crookedness 
made straight, then will vanish the delusion of mani- 
foldness and nature; and Maya, instead of being a 



MAYA AND FREEDOM lOt^ I 

J 

horrible, hopeless dream as it is now, will become \ 

beautiful, and this earth, instead of being the prison- ] 

house it is now, will become our playground. Even j 

dangers and difficulties, even all sufferings, will be- i 

come deified, as it were, and show us their real nature, ; 
will show us that behind everything, as the substance 
of evervthing. He is standing, and that He is the One 
Real Self. 



VII 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION 



(a) The Absolute. 



The one question that is most difficult to grasp in 
understanding the Advaita Philosophy, and the one 
question that will be asked again and again and that 
will always remain after thinking of it all our life, is 
— "How has the Infinite, the Absolute, apparently 
become the finite?" I will take up this question, and, 
in order to illustrate it better, I will use a figure. 

Here is the Absolute (a), and 
this is the Universe (b). The 
Absolute has become the Uni- 
verse. By this is not only meant 
the material world, but the men- 
tal world, the spiritual world — 
everything, heavens and earths, 
and all that exists. Mind is the 
name of a change, and body the name of another 
change, and so on, and all these changes compose our 
universe. The Absolute (a) appears to have become 
the Universe (b) by coming through time, space, and 
causation (c). This is the central idea of Advaita. 
Time, space, and causation are like the glass through 
which the Absolute is seen, and when It is seen on the 
lower side It appears as the Universe. Now we at 
once gather from this, that in the Absolute, there is 

io6 



(c) 
Time. 
Space. 
Causation. 



(b) The Universe. 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION IO7 

neither time, space, nor causation. The idea of time 
cannot be there, seeing that there is no mind, no 
thought. The idea of space cannot be there, seeing 
that there is no external change. What you call mo- 
tion and causation cannot exist where there is only one. 
We have to understand this and impress it on our 
minds, that what we call causation begins after, if we 
may be permitted to say so, the degeneration of the 
Absolute into the phenomenal, and not before; that 
our will, our desire, and all these things always come 
after that. I think Schopenhauer's philosophy makes 
a mistake in its interpretation of Vedanta, for it seeks 
to make the will everything. Schopenhauer makes the 
will stand in the place of the Absolute. But the Abso- 
lute cannot be presented as will, for will is something 
changeable and phenomenal, and over the line drawn 
above time, space and causation, there is no change, 
no motion. It is only below the line that external 
motion and internal motion, called thought, begin. 
There can be no will on the other side, and will, there- 
fore, cannot be the cause of this universe. Coming 
nearer, we see in our own bodies that will is not the 
cause of every movement. I move this chair; will 
was the cause of that movement, and that will became 
manifested as muscular motion at the other end. But 
the same power that moves the chair is moving the 
heart, the lungs, and so on, but not through will. 
Given that the power is the same, it only becomes will 
when it rises to the plane of consciousness, and to call 
it will before it has risen to this plane is a misnomer. 
This makes a good deal of confusion in Schopenhauer's 
philosophy. 



I08 J NANA YOGA 

A Stone falls and we ask why. This question is 
possible only on the supposition that nothing happens 
independently, that every motion must have been pre- 
ceded by a cause of some kind. I request you to 
make this very clear in your minds, for whenever we 
ask why anything happens, we are taking for granted 
that everything that happens must have a zvhy, that is 
to say, it must have been preceded by something else 
which acted as cause. This precedence and succed- 
ence are what we call the law of causation. It means 
that everything in the Universe is by turn a cause 
and an effect. It is the cause of certain things which 
come after it and is itself the effect of something else 
which has preceded it. This is called the law of 
causation, and is a necessary condition of all our think- 
ing. We believe that every particle in the universe, 
whatever it be, is in relation to every other particle. 
There has been great discussion as to how this idea 
arose. In Europe there have been so-called intuitive 
philosophers who believed that it was constitutional 
in humanity, others have believed that it comes from 
experience, but the question has never been settled. 
We shall see later on what Vedanta has to say about it. 
But first we have to understand this, that the very 
asking of the question "why" presupposes that every- 
thing round us has been preceded by certain things, 
and will be succeeded by certain other things. The 
other belief involved in this question is that nothing in 
the universe is independent, everything can be acted 
upon by something outside itself. Inter-dependence 
is the law of the whole universe. In saying, "What 
caused the Absolute?'' what error are we making! 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION IO9 

We are applying the same supposition in this case. 
To ask this question we have to suppose that the Abso- 
lute also is bound by something else, and that the Abso- 
lute also is dependent on something else. That is to 
say, in so using the word Absolute, we drag the 
Absolute down to the level of the universe. For above 
that line there is neither time, space, nor causation, 
because it is all one. That which exists by itself alone 
cannot have any cause. That which is free, cannot 
have any cause, else it would not be free, but bound. 
That which has relativity cannot be free. Thus, we 
see that the very question, why the infinite became the 
finite, is an impossible one, it is self-contradictory. 
Coming from subtleties to the logic of our common 
plane, to common sense, we can see this from another 
side, when we seek to know how the Absolute has 
become the relative. Supposing we knew the answer, 
would the Absolute remain the Absolute? It would 
have become the relative. What is meant by knowl- 
edge in our common sense idea? It is only something 
that has become limited by our mind, that we know, 
and when it is beyond our mind, it is not knowledge. 
Now if the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, it 
is no more Absolute ; it has become finite. Everything 
limited by the mind becomes finite. Therefore, to 
know the Absolute is again a contradiction in terms. 
That is why this question has never been answered, 
because if it were answered there would no more be 
an Absolute. A God known is no more God ; He has 
become finite like one of us. He cannot be known. 
He is always the Unknowable One. But what Advai- 
ta says is that God is more than knowable. This is 



no JNANA YOGA 

a great fact to learn. You must not go home with 
the idea that God is unknowable in the sense in which 
Agnostics put it. For instance, here is a chair, it is 
known to me. On the contrary what is beyond ether, 
or whether people exist there or not is possibly un- 
knowable. But God is neither known nor unknowable 
in this sense. He is something still higher than 
known ; that is what is meant by God being unknown 
and unknowable; the expression is not used in the 
sense in which it may be said that some questions are 
unknown and unknowable. God is more than known. 
This chair is known; but God is intensely more than 
that, because in and through Him we have to know this 
chair itself. He is the witness, the Eternal Witness of 
all knowledge. Whatever we know, we have to know 
in and through Him. He is the essence of our own 
Self. He, the *'I," is the essence of this ego ; we can- 
not know anything excepting in and through that "I." 
You have to know everything in and through the 
Brahman. To know the chair, therefore, you have to 
know it in and through God. Thus God is infinitely 
nearer to us than the chair, yet He is infinitely higher. 
Neither known, nor unknown, but something infinitely 
higher than either. He is your Self. "Who would 
live a second, who would breathe a second in this 
universe, if that Blessed One were not filling it, 
because in and through Him we breathe, in and 
through Him we exist?" Not that he is standing 
somewhere and making my blood circulate. What is 
meant is that He is the essence of all this, the Soul of 
my soul. You cannot by any possibility say you know 
Him; it would be too much of a degradation. You 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION III 

cannot jump out of yourself, so you cannot know 
Him. Knowledge is objectification. For instance, in 
memory you are objectifying many things, projecting 
them out of yourself. All memory, all the things 
which I have seen and which I know are in my mind. 
The pictures, the impressions of all these things are in 
my mind, as it were, and when I would try to think 
of them, to know them, the first act of knowledge 
would be to project them outside. This cannot be 
done with God, because He is the essence of our souls ; 
we cannot throw Him out. This is said to be the 
holiest word in Vedanta: "He that is the essence of 
your soul. He is the Truth, He is the Self, Thou that 
art, O Svetaketu." This is what is meant by "Thou 
art Brahman." You cannot describe Him by any 
other language. All attempts of language, calling 
Him father, or brother, or our dearest friend, are 
attempts to objectify God, which cannot be. He is 
the Eternal Subject of everything. I am the subject 
of this chair; I see the chair, so God is the Eternal 
Subject of my soul. How can you objectify Him, the 
Essence of your souls, the Reality of everything? 
Thus, I would repeat to you once more, God is neither 
knowable nor unknowable, but something infinitely 
higher than these. He is one with us, and that which 
is One is neither knowable, nor unknowable, just as 
my own self, or your own self. You cannot know 
your own self, you cannot move it out, and make it an 
object to look at, because you are that, and cannot 
separate yourself from it. Neither is it unknowable, 
for what is more known than yourself? It is really 
the centre of our knowledge in exactly the same sense 



112 J NANA YOGA 

that God is neither unknowable nor known, but infin- 
itely higher than that, your real Self. 

Thus we see, that, first, the question : "What caused 
the Absolute" is a contradiction in terms, and secondly, 
we find that the idea of God in the Advaita is His 
Oneness, and therefore we cannot objectify Him, for 
we are always living and moving in Him; whether 
we know it or not does not matter. Whatever we 
do is always through Him. Now the question is what 
are time, space, and causation? Advaita means non- 
duality; there are no two, but One. We see that 
here is a proposition that the Absolute, the One is 
manifesting Itself as many through the veil of time, 
space, and causation. Therefore it seems that here 
are two, the Absolute, and Maya (the sum- total of 
time, space, and causation). It seems apparently very 
convincing that there are two. To which the Advait- 
ist replies that it cannot be called two. To have two, 
we must have two independent existences, just as 
that of the Absolute, which cannot be caused. In the 
first place, this time, space, and causation cannot be 
said to be an independent existence. Time is entire- 
ly a dependent existence ; it changes with every change 
of our mind. Sometimes in a dream one imagines that 
he has lived several years; at other times several 
months were passed as one second. So that time has 
entire dependence on our state of mind. Secondly, 
the idea of time vanishes altogether sometimes. So 
with space, we cannot know what space is. Yet it is 
there, indefinable, and cannot live separate from any- 
thing else. So with causation. 

The one peculiar attribute we find in all this time. 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION II3 

space, and causation, is that they cannot live separate 
from other things. Try to think of space which has 
neither color, nor limits, nor any connection with the 
things around, just abstract space. You cannot think 
of it thus ; you have to think of it as the space between 
two limits, or between objects. It has to cling on to 
some object to have its existence. So with time; you 
cannot have any idea of abstract time, but you have to 
take two events, one preceding and the other succeed- 
ing, and join the two events by the idea of succes- 
sion. Time depends on two events, just as space has 
to relate itself to outside objects. And the idea of 
causation is inseparable from time and space. This is 
the peculiar thing about them, that they have no inde- 
pendent existence. They have not even the existence 
which the chair or the wall has. They are as a shadow 
around everything, but you cannot catch it. It has no 
real existence; we see that it has not. Yet a shadow 
is not non-existence, seeing that through this shadow 
all things are manifesting as this universe. Thus we 
see first that this combination of time, space, and causa- 
tion, has neither existence nor non-existence. It is 
like a shadow which comes around things. Secondly, 
it sometimes vanishes. To give an illustration, there 
is a wave on the sea. The wave is the same as the 
ocean, certainly, and yet we know it is a wave, and 
as such different from the ocean. What makes this 
difference? The form and the name, the idea in the 
mind and the form. Now can we think of a wave 
form as anything separate from the ocean ? Certainly 
not. It always clings on to the ocean idea. If the 
wave subsides, the form vanishes in a moment, and 



114 JNANA YOGA 

yet the form was not a delusion. So long as the wave 
existed the form was there, and you were bound to 
see the form. This is Maya. 

The whole of this universe, therefore, is as it were, 
a peculiar form ; the Absolute is that ocean, while you 
and I, the suns, and stars, and all things are various 
waves of the ocean. And what makes the waves dif- 
ferent? Only form, and that form is just time, space, 
and causation, all entirely dependent on the wave. 
As soon as you take away the wave, they vanish. As 
soon as the individual gives up this Maya, it vanishes 
for him, and he becomes free. The whole struggle 
is to get rid of this clinging on to time, space, and 
causation. It is always throwing obstacles in our 
way, and we are trying to get free. What do they 
call the theory of evolution? What are the two fac- 
tors? There is a tremendous potential power which 
is trying to express itself, and circumstances are hold- 
ing it down, the environments will not allow it to ex- 
press itself. So, in order to fight with these environ- 
ments, the power is getting newer and newer bodies. 
A little amoeba, in the struggle, gets another body and 
conquers some obstacles, then gets other bodies, until 
it becomes man. Now if we carry that logic to its 
conclusion, there must come a time when that power 
that was in the amoeba and which came out as man 
will have conquered all the obstructions that nature 
can bring before it, and will have escaped from all its 
environments. This idea brought into metaphysics 
would be expressed thus : there are two components of 
every action, the one the subject, the other the object. 
For instance, I feel unhappy because a man scolds me. 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION II 5 

These are the two parts; and what is my struggle all 
my life? To make myself strong enough to conquer 
that environment, so that he may scold and I shall not 
feel. That is how we are trying to conquer. What is 
meant by morality? Making the subject strong, inur- 
ing ourselves to the hardships of temptation until it 
ceases to have power over us and it is a logical con- 
clusion of our philosophy, that there must come a time 
when we shall have conquered all environments, be- 
cause Nature is finite. 

That is another thing to learn. How do you know 
that Nature is finite ? You can only know this through 
metaphysics. Nature is that infinite under limitations. 
Therefore it is finite. So there must come a time when 
we have conquered all environments. And how are 
we to conquer them ? We cannot possibly conquer all 
the objective environments. No. The little fish wants 
to fly from its enemies which are in the water. How 
does it conquer? By flying up into the air, becoming 
a bird. The fish did not change the water, or the air ; 
the change was in itself. Change is always subjec- 
tive. So on, all through evolution you find that the 
conquest of nature comes by change in the subjective. 
Apply this to religion, and morality, and you will find 
that the conquest of evil comes by the change in the 
subjective also. That is how the Advaita system gets 
its whole force, on the subjective side of man. To talk 
of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not 
exist outside. If I am inured against all anger, I never 
feel angry. If I am proof against all hatred, I never 
feel hatred, because it cannot touch me. 

This is therefore the process by which to achieve 



Il6 J NANA YOGA 

that conquest — ^through the subjective, by perfecting 
the subjective. Therefore, you find one more thing, 
that the only rehgion, I may make bold to say, which 
agrees with and even goes a little further than modern 
researches, both on physical and moral lines, is the 
Advaita, and that is why it appeals to modern scien- 
tists so much. They find that the old dualistic theories 
are not enough for them, do not satisfy their necessi- 
ties. A man must not only have faith, but intellectual 
faith too. Now, in this latter part of the nineteenth 
century, such ideas as that a religion coming from any 
other source than one's own forefather's religion must 
be false, show that there is still weakness left, and 
such ideas must be given up. I do not mean that it is 
in this country alone, but in every country, and no- 
where more than in my own. This Advaita was never 
allowed to come to the people. At first some monks 
got hold of it, and took it to the forests, and so it 
came to be called the Forest Philosophy. By the 
mercy of the Lord, the Buddha came and preached it 
to the masses, and the whole nation arose to Buddh- 
ism. Long after that, when atheists and agnostics 
had destroyed the nation again, the old preachers found 
out that Advaita was the only thing to save India from 
materialism. 

Twice has Advaita saved India from materialism. 
Just before the Buddha came, when materialism had 
spread to a fearful extent, and it was of a most hideous 
kind, not like that of the present day but of a far 
worse nature. I am a materialist of a certain kind, 
because I believe that there is only One. That is what 
the materialist wants to tell you, only he calls it matter 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION II7 

and I call it God. The materialists admit that out of 
this one matter, all hope, and religion, and everything 
have come. I say that all these have come out of 
Brahman. I allude to the old crude sort of material- 
ism — eat, drink and be merry; there is neither God, 
nor soul, nor heaven ; religion is a concoction of wicked 
priests ; the materialism which said to man : "As long 
as you live, try to live happily; eat, though you may 
have to borrow money for it, and never mind about 
repaying." That was the old materialism, and that 
kind of philosophy spread so much that even to-day 
it has got the name of "popular philosophy." Buddha 
brought the Vedanta out, gave it to the people and 
saved India. Then a thousand years after his death 
a similar state of things prevailed; the mobs, the 
masses, and the various races, had been converted to 
Buddhism, and naturally the teachings of the Buddha 
became in time degenerated because most of these 
people were very ignorant. Buddhism taught no God, 
no Ruler of the universe, so gradually the masses 
brought their gods, and devils, and hobgoblins, out 
again, and a tremendous hotch-potch was made of 
Buddhism in India. Then again Materialism came to 
the fore, taking the form of license with the higher 
classes, and superstition with the lower, when San- 
karacharya arose, and once more revivified the Vedan- 
ta philosophy. He made it a rationalistic philosophy. 
In the Upanishads the arguments are often very 
obscure. By Buddha the moral side of the philosophy 
was emphasized, and by Sankaracharya, the intellec- 
tual side. He collected all the obscure and apparently 
contradictory texts of the Upanishads and showed the 



Il8 J NANA YOGA 

harmony between them. He worked out, rationalized 
and placed before men a wonderful, coherent whole. 

Materialism prevails in Europe to-day. You may 
pray all the world over for the salvation of these 
sceptics, but they do not yield, they want reason. 
The salvation of Europe depends on a rationalistic 
religion, and Advaita — the non-duality, the Oneness, 
the idea of the impersonal God — is the only religion 
that can keep any hold on intellectual people. It 
comes whenever religion seems to disappear, and irre- 
ligion seems to prevail, and that is why it is gaining 
ground in Europe and America. One thing more has 
to be added to it. In the old Upanishads we find 
sublime poetry; these "Seers of Truth" were poets. 
Plato says, inspiration comes to people through poetry, 
and it seemed as if these ancient Rishis were raised 
above humanity to show these truths through poetry. 
They never preached, nor philosophized, nor wrote. 
Strains of music came out of their lips. In Buddha 
we had the great, universal heart, infinite patience 
making religion practical, bringing it to every one's 
door; in Sankaracharya we saw tremendous intellec- 
tual power, throwing the scorching light of reason 
over everything. We want to-day that bright sun of 
intellectuality, and joined to it the heart of Buddha, 
that wonderful, infinite heart of love and mercy. This 
union will give us the highest philosophy. Science 
and religion will meet and shake hands. Poetry and 
philosophy will become friends. This will be the 
religion of the future, and if we can work it out, we 
may be sure that it will be for all times and profes- 
sions. This is the one way that will be acceptable 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION II9 

to modern science, for it has almost fallen into it. 
When a great scientific teacher asserts that all things 
are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind 
you of the God of whom you hear in the Upanishads : 
"As the one fire entering into the universe is express- 
ing itself in various forms, and yet is infinitely more 
besides, even so that one Soul is expressing itself in 
every soul and yet is infinitely more besides." Do 
you not see how science is going ? The Hindu nation 
proceeded through the study of the mind, through 
metaphysics and logic. The European nations start 
from external nature, and now they^ too, are coming 
to the same results. We find that searching through 
the mind we at last come to that Oneness, that Uni- 
versal One, the Internal Soul of everything, the 
Essence, the Reality of everything, the Ever-Free, 
the Ever-Blissful, the Ever-Existing. Through mate- 
rial science we come to the same Oneness. Science 
to-day is telling us that all things are but the mani- 
festation of one energy, which is the sum-total of 
everything which exists, and the trend of humanity is 
towards freedom, and not towards bondage. Why 
should men be moral? Because through morality is 
the path towards freedom, and immorality leads to 
bondage. 

Another peculiarity of the Advaita system is that 
from its very start it is non-destructive. That is 
another glory, that boldness to preach : "Do not disturb 
the faith of any, even of those who through ignorance 
have attached themselves to lower forms of worship." 
That is what it says : "Do not disturb, but help every 
one to get higher and higher; include all humanity." 



I20 J NANA YOGA 

This philosophy preaches a God who is a sum-total. 
If you seek a universal religion which can apply to 
every one, that religion must not be partial and one- 
sided, it must always be the sum-total and be able to 
include all degrees of religious development. 

This idea is not clearly found in any other religious 
system. They are all parts which have not yet 
grasped the idea of absolute Unity. The existence of 
the part is merely for this, that it is always struggling 
to attain to the whole. So, from the very first Advaita 
had no antagonism with the various sects existing in 
India. There are dualists existing to-day, and their 
number is by far the largest in India, because dualism 
naturally appeals to less educated minds. It is a very 
handy, natural, common-sense explanation of the uni- 
verse. But with these dualists, Advaita has no quarrel. 
The one thinks the God of the universe is outside the 
universe, somewhere in heaven, and the other that 
the God of the universe is his own soul, and that it 
would be a blasphemy to call Him anything more 
distant. Any idea of separation would be terrible. 
We can only be the nearest of the near. There are 
not words in any language to express this nearness, 
except this one word — Oneness. With any other idea 
the Advaitist is frightened, just as the dualist is 
frightened with the concept of the Advaita, and thinks 
it blasphemy. At the same time the Advaitist knows 
why these other ideas must be and so has no quarrel 
with the dualist ; the latter is on the right road. From 
his standpoint, as soon as he looks from the part, he 
will have to see many. Any view of God looked at 
from a part of this universe can only be that project- 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION 121 

ing outside. It is the constitutional necessity of the 
duaHstic standpoint. Let them have it. The Advai- 
tist knows that whatever may be their defects or 
mistakes, they are all going to the same goal. There 
he differs entirely from the dualist, who is forced by 
his very point of view to believe that all opposing 
views are wrong. The dualists all the world over 
naturally believe in a personal God who is purely 
anthropomorphic; and just as a great potentate here 
is pleased with some and displeased with others, the 
same idea attaches to the personal God of the dualist. 
He is arbitrarily pleased with some person, or race, 
and showers blessings upon them. Naturally the 
dualist comes to the conclusion that God has certain 
favorites, and hopes to be one of them. You will 
find in almost every religion the idea that "we are 
the favorites of our God, and only by believing as 
we do can you be taken into favor with Him." Some 
dualists are so narrow as to insist that only the few 
who have been predestined to the favor of that God 
can be saved, the rest may try ever so hard, but they 
cannot come in. I challenge you to show one dualistic 
rehgion which has not more or less of this exclusive- 
ness. And because of it, they are in the nature of 
things bound to fight and quarrel with each other, 
and this they have ever been doing. Again, these 
dualists win popular favor, for the vanity of the unedu- 
cated is appealed to. They like to feel that they 
enjoy exclusive privileges. The dualist thinks you 
cannot have morality until you have a God with a 
rod in his hand, ready to punish you. The unthinking 
masses are generally dualists, and they, poor fellows, 



122 J NANA YOGA 

have been persecuted for thousands of years in every 
country, therefore their idea of salvation is absence 
from the fear of punishment. I have been asked by 
a clergyman in America: "What, no devil in your 
religion? How can that be?" But, on the other 
hand, we find that the best and greatest men that 
have been born in the world have worked with that 
high impersonal idea. It is the Man who says in the 
New Testament, "I and my Father are One," whose 
power descends unto millions. For thousands of 
years it has worked for good. And we know that the 
same Man, because he was a non-dualist, was merciful 
to others. To the masses who cannot conceive of 
anything higher than a personal God, he says : "Pray 
to your Father in heaven." To others, who could 
grasp a higher idea, he said: "I am the Vine, ye are 
the branches ;" but to his disciples to whom he revealed 
himself more fully he proclaimed the highest truth: 
"I and my Father are One." 

It was the great Buddha, in India, who never cared 
for the dualist gods, and who has been called an 
atheist and a materialist, who yet was ready to give 
up his body for a poor goat. That man set in motion 
the highest moral ideas any nation can have. .Wher- 
ever there is a moral code, it is a ray of light from 
that man. We cannot force the great hearts of the 
world into little narrow limits and keep them there, 
especially at this time in the history of humanity, 
when there is a degree of intellectual development 
such as was never dreamed of, even a hundred years 
ago; a wave of scientific knowledge which nobody, 
even fifty years ago, would have dreamed of. Do 



THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION I23 

you want to kill people by forcing them into narrow 
limits? It is impossible until you degrade them into 
animals and unthinking masses. What is now wanted 
is a combination of the highest intellectuality with the 
greatest heart expansion, infinite love and infinite 
knowledge. The Vedantist gives no other attribute 
to God except these three, that He is Infinite Exist- 
ence, Infinite Knowledge, Infinite Bliss ; and he regards 
these three as One. Existence without knowledge and 
love cannot be. Knowledge without love cannot be, 
and Love without knowledge cannot be. That is what 
we want, that harmony of Existence, Knowledge and 
Bliss. Infinite. Our goal is that perfection of Exist- 
ence, Knowledge, and Bliss. We want harmony, not 
one-sided development. It is possible to have the 
intellect of a Sankara with the heart of a Buddha, 
and I hope we shall all struggle to attain to that 
blessed combination. 



VIII 

UNITY IN DIVERSITY 

"The Self -Existent One projected the senses out- 
wards and therefore a man looks outward, not within 
himself. A certain wise one, desiring immortality, 
with inverted senses perceived the Self within." As 
we have been saying, the first inquiry that we find 
in the Samhita, and in the other books, was concerning 
outward things, and then a new idea came, that the 
reality of things is not to be found in the external 
world ; not by looking out, as it were, but by turning 
the eyes, as it is literally expressed, inwards. And 
the word used for the soul is very significant, it is 
"He who has gone inward," the innermost reality of 
our being, the heart centre, the core, from which, as 
it were, everything comes out; the central sun, of 
which the mind, the body, the sense organs, and 
everything else that we have, are but rays going out- 
wards. "Men of childish intellect, ignorant persons, 
run after desires, which are external, and enter the 
trap of far-reaching death, but the wise, understanding 
immortality, never seek for the eternal in this life of 
finite things." The same idea is here made clear, 
that in this external world, which is full of finite things, 
it is impossible to see and find the Infinite. The 
Infinite must alone be sought in that which is infinite, 

124 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY 125 

and the only thing infinite about us is that which is 
within us, our own soul. Neither the body, nor the 
mind, nor the world we see around us, not even our 
thoughts, are infinite. They all have beginning in 
time and finish in time. The Seer, He to whom they 
all belong, the soul of man. He who is awake in the 
internal man, alone is infinite, and to seek for the 
infinite cause of this whole universe we must go there ; 
in the infinite soul alone can we find it. ''What is 
here is there too, and what is there is here also. He 
who sees the manifold is going from death to death." 
We have seen how at first there was the desire to go 
to heaven. When these ancient Aryans became dis- 
satisfied with the world around them naturally they 
thought that after death they would go to some place 
where there would be all happiness without any mis- 
eries ; these places they multiplied and called Svargas — 
the word may be translated as heavens — where there 
would be joy for ever ; the body would become perfect, 
and also the mind, and there they would live with their 
forefathers. But as soon as philosophy came, men 
found that this was impossible and absurd. The very 
idea of an infinite in place would be a contradiction 
in terms. A place must begin and continue in time, 
therefore they had to give that up. They found out 
that the gods who lived in these heavens had once 
been human beings on earth, and through their good 
works, or something else, had become gods, and the 
godhoods, as they called them, were different states, 
different positions; none of the gods spoken of in 
the Vedas are permanent individuals. 

For instance, Indra and Varuna are not the names 



126 JNANA YOGA 

of certain persons, but the names of conditions, as 
governors and so on. The Indra who had been before 
is not the same person as the Indra of the present 
day ; according to them, he has passed away, and 
another man from earth has gone up and filled the 
place of Indra. So with all the gods. They are cer- 
tain positions, which are filled successively by human 
souls, who have raised themselves to the condition of 
gods, and yet — even they die. In the old Rig Veda 
we find the word immortality used with regard to 
these gods, but later on it is dropped entirely, for they 
found that immortality, which is beyond time and 
space, cannot be spoken of with regard to any physical 
form, however subtle it may be. However fine it may 
be it must have a beginning in time and space, for 
the necessary factors that enter into the production 
of form are in space. Try to think of having form 
without space; it is impossible. Space is one of the 
materials, as it were, which makes up the form, and 
this is continually changing. Space and time are in 
Maya, and this idea is related in the line — "What is 
here, that is there too." If there are these gods they 
must be bound by the same laws that apply here, and 
the one end of all laws, in their development, involves 
destruction and renewal again and again. These laws 
are taking the whole of matter to pieces, as it were 
moulding out of it different forms, and inversely 
crushing them out into matter again. Everything born 
must die, and so, if there are heavens, the same laws 
must hold good there. 

In this world we find that all happiness is followed 
by some sort of misery as its shadow. Life has its 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY 12/ 

shadow death. They must go together, because they 
are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but 
different manifestations of the same unit factor, life 
and death, sorrow and happiness, good and evil. The 
dualistic conception that good and evil are two separate 
identities, and that they are both going on eternally, 
is absurd on the face of it. They are the diverse man- 
ifestations of one and the same fact, at one time 
appearing as bad, and at another time as good. The 
difference does not exist in kind, but only in degree. 
They differ from each other in degree of intensity. 
We find as a fact that the same nerve systems carry 
good and bad sensations alike, and when the nerves 
are injured neither sensation comes to us. If a certain 
nerve is paralyzed, we do not get the pleasurable 
feelings that used to come along that wire, and at 
the same time we do not get the painful feelings 
either. They are never two, but the same. Again, 
the same thing produces pleasure and pain at different 
times of life. The same phenomenon will produce 
pleasure in one, and give pain to another. The eating 
of meat produces pleasure to the man, but pain to the 
animal which is being eaten. There has never been 
anything which has pleased every one alike. Some 
are pleased, others displeased. So it goes on. There- 
fore, on the face of it, this duality of existence is 
denied, and what follows from this? I told you in 
my last lecture that we can never ultimately have 
everything good on this earth and nothing bad. This 
may have disappointed and frightened some, but I 
cannot help it and I am open to conviction when 
I am shown the contrary; but until that can be 



128 J NANA YOGA 

proved to me, and I can find that it is true, I cannot 
say so. 

The general argument against my statement and 
apparently a very convincing one, is this, that in the 
course of evolution, all that is evil in what we see 
around us is gradually being eliminated, and the result 
is that if this elimination continues after millions of 
years a time will come when all the evil will have 
been eliminated, and the good alone will remain. This 
is apparently a very sound argument, would to God it 
were true, but there is a fallacy, and it is this, that it 
takes for granted that good and evil both are quantities 
that are eternally fixed. It takes for granted that 
there is a definite mass of evil which may be repre- 
sented by 100, and likewise of good, and that this 
mass of evil is being diminished every day, leaving 
only the good remaining. But is this so? The his- 
tory of the world shows that evil is a continuously 
increasing quantity as well as good. Take the lowest 
man; he lives in the forest. His sense of enjoyment 
is very small, and so also is his power to suffer. His 
misery is entirely on this sense plane. If he does not 
get plenty of food he is miserable, give him plenty of 
food and freedom to rove and to hunt, and he is per- 
fectly happy. His happiness consists only in the 
senses, and his misery also. See that man increasing 
in knowledge; his happiness is increasing, intellect 
is opening to him, sense enjoyment is evolving into 
intellectual enjoyment. He now feels wonderful 
pleasure in reading a beautiful poem. A mathematical 
problem takes up his whole life, and he is absorbed 
in the intense pleasure of it. But, with that, the finer 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY 1 29 

nerves are becoming more and more susceptible to 
intense miseries of which the savage did not think, 
and he suffers mental pain. The sense of separation 
when the husband does not love the wife, quarrels, 
and in a dozen things intense desires seize upon him, 
causing pain which was unknown to the savage. Take 
a very simple illustration. In Thibet there is no mar- 
riage, and there is no jealousy; yet we know that 
marriage is a much higher state. The Thibetans have 
not known the wonderful enjoyment, the blessing of 
chastity, the happiness of having a chaste, virtuous 
wife, and a chaste, virtuous husband. These people 
cannot feel that. And similarly they do not feel the 
intense jealousy of the unchaste wife or husband, of 
unfaithfulness on either side, with all the heart-burn- 
ings and miseries which believers in chastity experi- 
ence. On one side the latter gain happiness, but on the 
other they gain misery too. 

Take your country, which is the richest the world 
ever knew, and which is more luxurious than any 
other country, and see how intense is the misery, how 
many more lunatics you have, compared with other 
races, only because the desires are so keen. A man 
must keep up a high standard. The amount of money 
you spend in one year would be a fortune to a man in 
India, and you cannot preach to him because the sur- 
roundings are such, that that man must have so much 
money or he is crushed. The wheel of society is 
rolling on; it stops not for widows' tears or orphans' 
wails. You must move on, or you will be crushed 
under it. That is the state of things everywhere. 
Your sense of enjoyment is developed, your society 



.130 J NANA YOGA 

is very much more beautiful than some others. You 
have so many more things to enjoy. But those who 
have fewer have much less misery than you have in 
this country. You can argue thus throughout. The 
higher the ideal you have in the brain, the greater is 
your enjoyment, and the more profound your misery. 
One is like the shadow of the other, so to say; that 
evils are being eliminated may be true, but if so, the 
good also must be dying out. But are not evils multi- 
plying fast, and diminishing on the other side, if I 
may so put it? If good increases in arithmetical pro- 
portion, evil increases in geometrical proportion. And 
this is Maya. It means that it is neither optimism 
nor pessimism. It is not the position of Vedanta that 
this world is a miserable world. That would be a 
lie. At the same time we say it is not true, it is a 
mistake to say that this world is full of happiness 
and blessings. So it is useless to tell children that 
this world is all good, all flowers, and milk and honey. 
That is what we have all dreamed. At the same time 
it is erroneous to think because one man has suffered 
more than another that all is evil. It is this duality, 
this play of good and evil, that misleads us. We 
must always remember the warning of Vedanta not 
to think that good and evil are two, not to believe 
that good and evil are two separate essences, for 
they are one and the same thing appearing in different 
degrees and in different guises, and producing differ- 
ences of feeling in the same mind. So, the first 
thought of Vedanta is the finding of unity in the 
external, the One Existence manifesting Itself, how- 
ever different It may appear in manifestation. Think 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY I3I 

of the old crude theories of the Persians — two gods 
creating this world. The good god doing everything 
that is pleasurable, and the bad one everything else. 
On the very face of it you find the absurdity, for if 
it be carried out every law of nature must have two 
parts, and this law of nature is sometimes manipulated 
by one god, and then he goes away and the other man- 
ipulates it. It is the law of Unity that gives us our 
food, and the same law kills many men through acci- 
dents or misadventure. Then the difficulty comes, 
that both are working at the same time, and these two 
gods keep themselves in harmony, by injuring one and 
doing good to another. This was a crude case, of 
course, the crudest way of expressing the duality of 
existence. But then, take the more advanced philoso- 
phy, the abstract cases, of telling people that this world 
is partly good and partly bad. This again is absurd, 
arguing from the same standpoint. 

As such, we find first of all that this world is neither 
optimistic nor pessimistic ; it is a mixture of both, and 
as we go on we shall find that the whole blame is 
taken out of the hands of nature and put upon us. 
And again, the Vedanta offers a great hope. It is not 
a denial of evil ; it analyzes boldly the fact as it is, 
and does not seek to conceal anything. It is not hope- 
less; it is not agnostic. It finds out a remedy, but it 
wants to place that remedy on adamantine foundations, 
not by shutting the child's mouth and blinding its 
eyes with something which is transparently untrue, 
and which the child will find out in a few days. I 
remember when I was a young child, a young man's 
father died and left him poor, and with a large family 



132 J NANA YOGA 

to support. He found that his father's friends were 
his worst enemies in reaHty, and one day he had a 
conversation with a clergyman who offered this con- 
solation, "Oh, it is all good, all is sent for our good." 
That is the old method of trying to put a piece of 
gold cloth on an old sore. It is a confession of weak- 
ness, of absurdity. Then this young man went away, 
and six months afterw^ards the clergyman had a son 
born, and the young man was invited to the party for 
thanksgiving. Then the clergyman began to pray, 
"Thank God for His mercies." And the young man 
stood up and said, "Stop; this is all misery." The 
clergyman asked why. "Because when my father died 
it was all good, though apparently evil; so now this 
is apparently good, but really evil." Is this the way 
to cure the misery of the world? Be good and have 
mercy to those who suffer. Do not try to patch it 
up, nothing will cure this world; go beyond it. 

This world is a world of good and evil always. 
Wherever there is good, evil follows, but beyond and 
behind all the manifestation, all the contradiction, the 
Vedanta finds that Unity. It says give up what is 
evil and give up what is good. What then remains? 
It says good and evil are not all we have. Behind 
these stands something which is yours, the real you, 
beyond every evil, and beyond every good too, and it 
is that which is manifesting itself as good and bad. 
Know that first, and then, and then alone, you will be 
an optimist; and not before; for you will then control 
the whole thing. Control these manifestations and 
then you will be at liberty to manifest the real "you" 
just as you hke. Then alone you will be able to 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY 1 33 

manifest it only as good, or only as evil, just as you 
like; but be first master of yourself, stand up and be 
free ; go beyond the pale of these laws, for these laws 
do not absolutely govern you, they are only part of 
your being. First find out that you are not the slave 
of nature, never were and never will be; that this 
nature, infinite as you may think it, is only finite, but 
one drop in the ocean, and your nature is as the ocean ; 
you are beyond the stars, or the sun, or the moon. 
They are like mere bubbles compared with your infinite 
being. Know that and you will control both good and 
evil. Then alone the whole vision will change and 
you will stand up and say, how beautiful is good and 
how wonderful is evil. 

That is what the Vedanta teaches you to do. It 
does not propose any slipshod remedy by covering 
things over with gold paper, and the more the wound 
festers putting on the more gold paper. This life is 
a hard fact; work out of it if you can, boldly, though 
it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is greater. 
It lays no responsibility on little gods; but you are 
the makers of your fortunes. You make yourselves 
suffer, you make good and evil, and it is you who put 
your hands before your eyes and say it is dark. Hands 
off and see the light ; you are effulgent, you are perfect 
already, from the very beginning. We understand 
it now. "He goes from death to death who sees the 
many here. See that One and be free." 

How are we to see it? Nay, even this very mind, 
so deluded, so weak, so easily led, even this mind can 
be strong and may catch a glimpse of that knowledge, 
that Oneness, and then it saves us from dying again 



134 J NAN A YOGA 

and again. "As water which falls upon a mountain 
breaks into pieces, and in many various streams runs 
down the sides of the mountain, so all the energies 
which you see here are that one Unit beginning." It 
has become manifold falling upon Maya. Do not run 
after the manifold ; go towards the One. "He is in 
all that moves ; He is in all that is pure. He fills the 
Universe; He is in the sacrifice; He is the Guest in 
the house ; He is in man, in water, in animals, in truth ; 
He is the Great One ; He is the One Fire coming into 
this world. He is manifesting Himself in various 
forms. Even so that one Soul of the Universe is mani- 
festing Himself in all these various forms. As the one 
air coming into this universe manifests itself in various 
forms, even so the One Soul of all souls of all beings, 
is manifesting Himself in all forms." This is true for 
you when you have understood this Unity, and not 
before. Then all is optimism, because He is seen 
everywhere. The question is, that if all this be true, 
that that Pure One, the Self, the Infinite, has entered 
all this, how is it that He suffers, how is it that He 
becomes miserable, impure? He does not, says the 
Upanishad. "As the sun is the cause of the eye-sight 
of every being, yet is not made defective by the defect 
in any eye, even so the Self of all is not affected by 
the miseries of the body, or by any misery that is 
around you." I may have some disease, and see 
everything yellow, but the sun is not affected. "He 
is the One, the Creator of all, the Ruler of all, the 
internal Soul of every being. He who makes His 
Oneness manifold. Thus sages who realize him as 
the Soul of their souls, unto them belong eternal 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY I35 

peace; unto none else, unto none else. He who in 
this world of evanescence finds Him who never 
changes, he who in this universe of death finds that 
one life, he who in this manifold finds that oneness, 
and all those who realize Him as the soul of their 
souls, to them belongs eternal peace; unto none else, 
unto none else. Where to find Him in the external 
world, where to find Him in the suns, and moons, and 
stars? There the sun cannot illumine, nor the moon, 
nor the stars, the flash of lightning cannot illumine 
the place ; what to speak of this mortal fire. He shin- 
ing, everything else shines. It is His light that they 
have borrowed, and He is shining through them.'* 
Here is another beautiful simile. Those of you who 
have been in India and have heard of the Banyan tree, 
how it comes from one root, and spreads far around, 
will understand. He is that Banyan tree; His root 
is above, and has branched out until it has become 
this universe, and however far it extends, every one 
of these trunks and branches is connected. He is the 
root of all. 

Various heavens are spoken of in the Brahmana 
portion of the Vedas, and the philosophical teaching of 
the Upanishads implies giving up the idea of going 
to heaven. All the work is not in this heaven, or 
that heaven, it is here in the soul ; places do not sig- ) 
nify anything. Here is another passage which shows j 
these different states. "In the heaven of the fore- 
fathers, as a man sees things in a dream, so the real 
truth is seen." As in dreams we see things hazy and 
indistinct, so we see things there. There is another 
heaven called the Gandharva; there it is still less 



136 J NANA YOGA 

distinct ; as a man sees his own reflection in the water, 
so is the reaUty seen there. The highest heaven 
that the Hindus conceive is called the Brahmaloka, 
and in this the truth is seen much more clearly but 
not yet quite distinctly, like light and shade; but as 
a man sees his own face in a mirror, perfect, dis- 
tinct, and clear, so is the truth shining in the soul of 
man. The highest heaven, therefore, is here in our 
own souls, the greatest temple of worship is the human 
soul, greater than all heavens, says the Vedanta, for 
in no heaven anywhere can we understand the reality 
as distinctly and clearly as here in this life, in our 
own soul. You may change places, just as we have 
seen. I have thought while in India that the cave 
would give clearer vision. I found it was not so. 
Then I thought the forest would be better. Then I 
thought Benares. The difficulty exists everywhere, 
because we make our own worlds, t If I am evil the 
whole world is evil to me. That is what the Upanishad 
says. And the same thing applies to all. If I die 
and go to heaven, I should find the same. Until you 
are pure it is no use going to caves, or forests, or to 
Benares, or to heaven; and if you have polished your 
mirror it does not matter where you live, you get the 
\ reality just as it is. So it is useless work, running 
hither and thither, spending energy in vain, which 
should be spent only in polishing the mirror. The 
same idea is expressed again. 

"None see Him, none see His form with the eyes. 
It is in the mind, the pure mind. He is seen, and thus 
immortality is gained." Those that were at the sum- 
mer lectures on Raja Yoga will be interested to know 



( 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY 137 

that what was taught then was a different kind of 
Yoga. Here in philosophy there is also a Yoga, but 
this is what is meant, that where there is control of 
all our senses, when these are held as slaves by the 
human soul; when they can no longer disturb his 
mind, then the Yogin has reached the goal. "When 
all vain desires of the heart have been thrown out, 
then this very mortal becomes immortal, then here 
he becomes one with God. When all the knots of the 
heart are cut asunder, then the mortal becomes immor- 
tal, and he enjoys Brahman." Here on earth, nowhere 
else. 

A few words ought to be said here. Generally you 
will hear that this Vedanta, this philosophy and these 
Eastern systems look only to something beyond, letting 
go the enjoyments and struggles of this life. This 
idea is entirely wrong. Ignorant people who do not 
know anything of Eastern thought, and never had 
brain enough among them all to understand anything 
of the real teaching, tell you that you are going outside 
to the other world. On the other hand, we read in 
black and white here that they do not desire to go 
to any other world, but depreciate these worlds as 
places where people weep or laugh for a little while 
and then die. So long as we are weak, we shall have 
to go through the same thing there, but whatever is 
true is here, and that is the human soul. And this 
also is insisted upon, that we cannot escape the inevit- 
able by committing suicide ; we cannot evade it. But 
the right path is hard to find. The Hindu mind is 
just as practical as the Western, only we differ in our 
views of life. One man says build a good house, and 



138 JNANA YOGA 

have good clothes and good food, and intellectual 
knowledge, knowledge of science and so on, this is 
the whole of life ; and in that he is immensely practical. 
But the Hindu says true knowledge of the world means 
knowledge of the soul, metaphysics, and he wants to 
enjoy that life. In America there was a great Agnostic 
orator, a very noble man, a very good man, and a very 
fine speaker. He lectured on religion and said it was 
no use, we need not bother our heads about other 
worlds, and he employed this simile: we have an 
orange here, and we want to squeeze all the juice out 
of it. I met him once and said, "I agree with you 
entirely. I have this orange and I want to squeeze 
the juice out too. Only we differ as to the fruit. 
You think it is an orange; I think it is a mango. 
You think it is only necessary to live here and eat and 
drink and have a little scientific knowledge, but you 
have no right to say, that is the whole idea of life. 
To me such a conception is nothing. If I had only 
to know how an apple falls to the ground, or how an 
electric current shakes my nerves, I would commit 
suicide the next moment. I want to know the heart 
of things, the very life itself. Your study is the man- 
ifestation of life, mine is the life itself. I want to 
squeeze the juice out of my fruit even in this life. 
My philosophy says you must know the whole of it 
and drive out your heavens and hells and all these 
superstitions, even if they exist in the same sense that 
this world exists. I would know the heart of this life, 
its very essence, how it is, not only how it works and 
what are its manifestations. I want the 'why' of 
everything, I leave the 'how' to children. As one of 



UNITY IN DIVERSITY I39 

your countrymen said, 'While I am smoking a cigarette, 
if I were to write down everything that happens, it 
would be the science of the cigarette.' It is good and 
great to be scientific. Lord bless them in their search, 
but when a man says that is all, he is talking foolishly, 
not caring to know the raison d'etre of life, never 
studying existence itself. I may argue that all your 
knowledge is nonsense without basis. You are study- 
ing the manifestations of life, and when I ask you 
what life is you say you do not know. You are wel- 
come to your study, but leave me mine." 

Yet I myself am practical, very practical, in my 
own way. So all these ideas about being practical 
are nonsense. You arc practical in one way, and 
others in another. But a man of another type of mind 
does not talk. If he is told that he will find out the 
truth standing on one leg, he will find it that way. 
Another kind of man hears there is a gold mine some- 
where, with savages all round. Three men go. Two 
perish, but one succeeds. The same man has heard 
there is a soul, and is content to leave it to the clergy- 
man to preach. But the first man will not go near the 
savages. He says it may be dangerous, but if you 
tell him that on the top of Mount Everest, 30,000 feet 
above the sea level, there is a wonderful sage who can 
give him knowledge of the soul, he tries to climb there 
— 40,000 may be killed, but one finds out the truth. 
These are practical, too, but the mistake lies in regard- 
ing what you term the world, as the whole of life. 
Yours is the vanishing point of enjoyment of the 
senses; there never was anything permanent in it, 
it can only bring more and more misery. Mine 



I40 J NANA YOGA 

brings eternal peace, and yours brings only perpetual 
sorrows. 

I do not say your view of what is practical is wrong. 
You are welcome to your interpretation. Great good 
and man's blessing come out of it, but do not therefore 
condemn my view. Mine also is practical in its own 
way. Let us all work according to our own plans. 
Would to God all of us were equally practical on both 
sides. I have seen some scientists who were equally 
practical scientists and spiritual men, and it is my 
great hope that in course of time the whole of humanity 
will be efficient in all such things. When a kettle of 
water is boiling, if you watch the phenomenon you 
find a bubble rising in one corner, and another in an 
opposite corner, then the bubbles begin to multiply, 
and four or five join together, and at last they all join, 
and a tremendous motion goes on. This world is 
very similar. Each individual is like a bubble, and 
the nations resemble many bubbles. Gradually these 
nations are joining, and I am sure the day will come 
when such a thing as a nation will vanish, and this 
separation will vanish; that Oneness to which we are 
all going, whether we like it or not, will become mani- 
fest; we are brothers by nature, and have become 
separate. A time must come when all these ideas will 
be joined, and every man and woman in this world 
will be as intensely practical in the scientific world as 
in the spiritual, and then that Oneness, the harmony 
of oneness, will pervade the whole world. The whole 
world will become jivanmuktas — "free whilst living." 
And we are all fighting towards that one end through 
all our jealousies and hatreds, through co-operation 



UNtTY IN DIVERSITY I4I 

and antagonism. A tremendous stream is flowing 
towards the ocean. There are Httle bits of paper and 
straw in the stream. They may struggle to go back, 
but, in the long run, must follow down to the ocean. 
So you and I and all nature are like these little bits 
of paper rushing in mad currents towards that ocean 
of Life, Perfection and God; we may struggle to go 
back, to get up or down, and play all sorts of pranks, 
but in the long run we must go and join this ocean 
of Life and Bliss. 



GOD IN EVERYTHING 

We have seen how the greater portion of our life 
must of necessity be filled with evils, however we may 
resist, and that this mass of evil is practically almost 
infinite for us. We have been struggling to remedy 
this since the beginning of time, yet everything remains 
very much the same. The more we discover remedies, 
the more we find subtle evils existing in the world. 
We have also seen that all religions propose a God, 
as the one way of escaping from these difficulties. 
All religions tell us that if you take the world as it is, 
as most practical people would advise us to do in this 
age, then nothing would be left to us but evil. But 
all religions assert that there is something beyond this 
world. This life in the five senses, life in the material 
world, is not all that we have, it is only a small portion, 
and merely superficial. Behind and beyond is the 
Infinite where there is no more evil. Some people 
call this Infinite God, some Allah, some Jehovah, and 
so on. The Vedantin calls It Brahman. 

The first impression of the advice given by religions 
is that we had better terminate our existence. Yet 
we have to live. The question is how to cure the 
evils of life, and the answer apparently is, give up life. 
It reminds one of the old story. A mosquito settled 

142 



GOD IN EVERYTHING 143 

on the head of a man, and a friend, wishing to kill 
the mosquito, gave it such a blow that he killed both 
man and mosquito. The remedy seems to suggest a 
similar course of action. Life is full of ills, the world 
is full of evil ; that is a fact which no one who is old 
enough to know the world can deny. 

But what is the remedy proposed by all the religions ? 
That this world is nothing. Beyond this world is 
something which is very real. And here is the real 
fight. The remedy seems to destroy everything. How 
can that be a remedy ? Is there no way out ? Another 
remedy is proposed. The Vedanta says that what all 
the religions advance is perfectly true, but it should 
be properly understood. Often it is misunderstood, 
because the various religions are not very explicit, 
not very clear. What we want is head and heart 
together. The heart is great indeed ; it is through the 
heart that come the great inspirations of life. I would 
a hundred times rather have a little heart and no brain, 
than be all brains and no heart. Life is possible, 
progress is possible for him who has heart, but he 
who has no heart and only brains dies of dryness. 

At the same time we know that he who is carried 
along by his heart alone has to undergo many ills, for 
now and then he is liable to fall into pits. The com- 
bination of heart and head is what we want. I do 
not mean that a man should have less heart or less 
brain, and make a compromise, but let every one have 
an infinite amount of heart and feeling, and at the 
same time an infinite amount of reason. Is there any 
limit to what we want in this world ? Is not the world 
infinite? There is room for an infinite amount of 



144 JNANA YOGA 

feeling, and so also for an infinite amount of culture 
and reason. Let them all come together without any 
limit, let them be running together, as it were, in paral- 
lel lines each with the other. 

Most religions understand this fact and state it in 
very clear and precise language, but the error into 
which they all seem to fall is the same ; they are carried 
away by the heart, the feelings. There is evil in the 
world; give up the world: that is the great teaching, 
and the only teaching, no doubt. Give up the world. 
There cannot be two opinions that, to understand the 
truth, every one of us must give up error. There 
cannot be two opinions that every one of us, in order 
to have good must give up evil; there cannot be two 
opinions that every one of us to have life, must give 
up what is death. And yet, what remains to us, if 
this theory involves giving up the life of the senses, 
life as we know it, and what do we mean by life? If 
we give up all this, nothing remains. We shall under- 
stand this better, when, later on, we come to the more 
philosophical portions of the Vedanta. For the 
present, however, I beg to state that in Vedanta alone 
we find a rational solution of the problem. Here I 
can only lay before you what the Vedanta seeks to 
teach, and that is, the deification of the world. 

The Vedanta does not, in reality, denounce the 
world. The ideals of renunciation nowhere attain such 
a climax as in the teachings of the Vedanta, but, at 
the same time, dry suicidal advice is not intended, it 
really means deification of the world — ^to give up the 
world as we think of it, as we seem to know it, as it 
is appearing, and to know what it really is. Deify it ; 



GOD IN EVERYTHING I45 

it is God alone, and, as such, we read at the com- 
mencement of the oldest of the Upanishads, the very 
first book that was ever written on the Vedanta — 
"Whatever exists in this Universe, whatever is there, 
is to be covered with the Lord." 

We have to cover everything with the Lord Himself, 
not by a false sort of optimism, not by blinding our 
eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in everything. 
Thus we have to give up the world, and when the 
world is given up, what remains? God. What is 
meant? You can have your wives; it does not mean 
that you are to abandon them, and leave them to go 
away, but that you are to see God in the wife. Give 
up your children; what does that mean? Take your 
children and throw them into the street, as some 
human brutes do in every country? Certainly not. 
That is diabolism; it would not be religion. But see 
God in your children. So in everything. In life and 
in death, in woe and in joy, in misery and in happiness, 
the whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes 
and see Him. That is what Vedanta says. Give up 
the world which you have conjectured, because your 
conjecture was based upon very partial experience; 
your conjecture was based upon poor reasoning, and 
upon your own weakness. Give that up; the world 
we have been thinking of so long, the world to which 
we have been clinging so long, is a false world of our 
own creation. Give that up; open your eyes and see 
that as such it never existed; it was a dream, Maya. 
What existed was the Lord Himself. It is He in 
the child, He in the wife, and He in the husband, He 
in the good, and He in the bad. He in the murderer. 



146 J NANA YOGA 

He in the sin, and He in the sinner, He in life, and 
He in death. A tremendous proposal indeed! Yet 
that is the theme which the Vedanta wants to demon- 
strate, to teach, to preach, and to prove. This is just 
the opening theme. 

Thus we avoid the dangers of life and its evils. Do 
not want anything. What makes us miserable ? The 
cause of all miseries from which we suffer has been 
made by desire, want. You want something, and the 
want is not fulfilled; the result is distress. If there 
be no want there will be no more suffering. When 
we shall give up all our desires, what will be the result ? 
The walls have no desires and they never suffer. No, 
and they never evolve. This chair has no desires; it 
never suffers, and it is a chair, too, all the time. There 
is a glory in happiness, there is a glory in suffering. 
If I may dare to say so, there is a utility in evil, too. 
The great lesson in misery we all know. Hundreds 
of things we have done in our lives which we wish we 
had never done, but which, at the same time, have 
been great teachers. As for me, I am glad that I have 
done good things, and glad I have done something 
bad; glad I have done something right, and glad I 
have committed many errors, because every one of 
them has been a great lesson. 

I, as I am this minute, am the resultant of all I have 
done, all I have thought. Every action and every 
/ thought has had its effect, and these effects are the 
i sum-total of my progress. The problem becomes diffi- 
cult. We all understand that desires are wrong, but 
what is meant by giving up desires? How can life 
go on? It would be the same suicidal advice, which 



GOD IN EVERYTHING 1 47 

means killing the desire and the patient too. So the 
answer comes. Not that you should not have property, 
not that you should not have things which are neces- 
sary, and things which are even luxuries. Have all 
that you want, and everything that you do not want 
sometimes, only know the truth and realize the truth. 
This wealth does not belong to anybody. Have no idea 
of proprietorship, possessorship. You are nobody, nor 
am I, nor any one else. It all belongs to the Lord, 
because the opening verse told us to put the Lord in 
everything. God is in that wealth that you enjoy. 
He is in the desire that rises in your mind. He is in 
these things you buy because you desire them; He is 
in your beautiful attire, in your handsome ornaments. 
That is the line of thought. All will be metamor- 
phosed as soon as you begin to see things in that 
light. If you put God in your every movement, in 
your clothes, in your talk, in your body, in your mind, 
in everything, the whole scene changes, and the world, 
instead of appearing as woe and misery, will become 
a heaven. 

•'The kingdom of heaven is within you," says Jesus ; 
it is already there, says the Vedanta; so say others, 
so says every great teacher. "He that hath eyes to 
see, let him see," and "he that hath ears to hear, let 
him hear." It is already here. And that is one of the 
themes which the Vedanta undertakes to prove. It 
will prove also, that the truth for which we have been 
searching all this time is already present, it was all the 
time with us. In our ignorance, we thought we had 
lost it, and went about in the world crying and weeping, 
suffering misery, struggling to find the truth, and all 



148 J NANA YOGA 

the time it was dwelling in our own hearts. There 
alone can we find it. 

If giving up the world is true, and if it is taken in 
its crude, old sense, then it would come to mean this : 
that we must not work, that we must become idle, 
that we must sit like lumps of earth, and neither think 
nor do anything, but become fatalists, driven about 
by every circumstance, ordered about by the laws of 
nature, drifting from place to place. That would be 
the result. But that is not what is meant. We must 
work. Ordinary mankind, driven everywhere by false 
desires, what do they know of work? The man pro- 
pelled by his own feelings and his own senses, what 
does he know about work? He works who is not 
propelled by his own desires, or by any selfishness 
whatsoever. He works who has no ulterior motive in 
view. He works who has nothing to gain from work. 

Who enjoys a picture, the seller of the picture or 
the seer? The seller is busy with his accounts, com- 
puting what his gain will be, how much profit he will 
realize on the picture. His brain is full of that. He 
is looking at the hammer, and watching the bids. He 
is intent on hearing how fast the bids are rising. That 
man is enjoying the picture who has gone there without 
any intention of buying or selling. He looks at the 
picture and enjoys it. So this whole universe is a 
picture, and when these desires have vanished, men 
will enjoy the world ; and this buying and selling, and 
these foolish ideas of possession will be ended. The 
money-lender gone, the buyer gone, the seller gone, 
this world remains the picture, a beautiful painting. 
I never read of any more beautiful conception of God 



GOD IN EVERYTHING I49 

than the following : "He is the great poet, the ancient 
poet : the whole universe is his poem, coming in verses 
and rhymes and rhythms, written in infinite bliss.'* 
When we have given up desires, then alone shall we 
be able to read and enjoy this universe of God. Then 
everything will become deified. Nooks and corners, 
by-ways and shady places, which we thought so unholy, 
spots on its surface which appeared so black, will be 
all deified. They will all reveal their true nature, 
and we shall smile at ourselves, and think that all 
this weeping and crying has been but child's play, and 
we were standing there watching. 

Thus, says the Vedanta, do you work. It first 
advises us how to work — by giving up — giving up the 
world, the apparent, illusive world. What is meant 
by that? Seeing God everywhere, as said already. 
Thus do you work. Desire to live a hundred years, 
have all the earthly desires, if you will, only deify 
them, convert them into heaven, and live a hundred 
years. Have the desire to live a long life of helpful- 
ness, of blissfulness and activity on this earth. Thus 
working, you will find the way. There is no other 
way. If a man plunges headlong into foolish luxuries 
of the world without knowing the truth, he has not 
reached the goal, he has missed his footing. And if 
a man curses the world, mortifies his flesh, goes into a 
forest, and kills himself bit by bit by starving himself, 
makes his heart a barren waste, a desert, kills out all 
his feeling, becomes stern, awful, dried-up, that man 
also has missed the way. These are the two extremes, 
the two mistakes at either end. Both have lost the 
way, both have missed the goal. 



150 J NANA YOGA 

Thus, says the Vedanta, thus work, putting God in 
everything, and knowing Him to be in everything, 
thus work incessantly, holding life as something deified, 
as God Himself, and knowing that this is all we have 
to do, this is all we have to ask for, because God is 
here in everything ; where else shall we go to find Him ? 
In every work, in every thought, in every feeling, 
He is already there. Thus knowing, we must work; 
this is the only way, there is no other. Thus the 
effects of work will not bind us down. We shall not 
be injured by the effects of work. We have seen how 
these false desires are the causes of all the misery and 
evil we suffer, but when they are thus deified, purified 
through God, when they come they bring no evil, they 
bring no misery. Those who have not learned this 
secret will have to live in a demoniacal world until 
they discover the secret. Many do not know what an 
infinite mine of bliss fulness and pleasure and happiness 
is here, in them, around them, everywhere; they have 
not yet discovered it. What is a demoniacal world? 
The Vedanta says a world of ignorance. 

Says the Vedanta, we are dying of thirst sitting 
on the banks of the mightiest river. We are dying of 
hunger sitting near piles of food. Here is the blissful 
universe. We do not find it. We are in it; it is 
around us all the time, and we are always mistaking 
it. Religions propose to find this out for us. This 
blissful universe is the real search in all hearts. It 
has been the search of all nations, it is the one goal of 
religion, and this ideal is expressed in various lan- 
guages ; all the petty differences between religions and 
religions are mere word struggles, nonsense. It i§ 



GOD IN EVERYTHING I5I 

only difference of language that makes all these 
apparent divergences; one expresses a thought in one 
way, another a little differently, yet perhaps each is 
saying exactly what the other is expressing in dif- 
ferent language. That is how struggles come in this 
life of ours. 

More questions arise in connection with this. It is 
very easy to talk about. From my childhood I have 
heard of this putting God everywhere and everything 
will become deified, and then I can really enjoy every- 
thing, but as soon as I come into this world, and get 
a few blows from it, this idea vanishes. I am out in 
the street thinking that God is in every man, and a 
strong man comes and gives me a push and I fall flat 
on the footpath. Then I rise up quickly, the blood 
has rushed into my head, and my fist clinches and 
reflection goes. Immediately I become mad. Every- 
thing is forgotten, instead of encountering God I see 
the devil. We have been told since we were born to 
see God in all; every religion has taught that — see 
God in everything and everywhere. Do you not 
remember in the New Testament how Christ explicitly 
says so ? We have all been taught this, but it is when 
we come to the practical side that the difficulty begins. 
You all remember how in "^sop's Fables" a fine big 
stag is looking at his picture reflected in a lake, and 
saying to his child, "How powerful I am, look at my 
splendid head, look at my limbs, how strong and 
muscular they are; how swiftly I can run," and in 
the meantime he hears the barking of dogs in the 
distance, and immediately takes to his heels, and after 
he has run several miles he comes back panting. The 



152 JNANA YOGA 

child says, ''You just told me how strong you were, 
how was it that when the dogs barked you ran away ?" 
"That is it, my son; when the dogs bark all my con- 
fidence vanishes. I forget my strength; my courage 
forsakes me and I flee for my life." So are we all 
our lives. We are all thinking highly of poor human- 
ity, we feel ourselves strong and valiant in the right; 
we make grand resolves, but when the "dogs" of 
trial and temptation bark, we are like the stag in the 
fable. We forget our power to overcome, we waver 
and for a time we are vanquished. Then if such is the 
case, what is the use of teaching all these things? 
There is the greatest use. The use is this, that perse- 
verance will finally conquer. Nothing is to be done 
in a day. 

"This Self is first to be heard, then to be thought 
upon, and then meditated upon." Every one can see 
the sky, even the very worm crawling upon the earth, 
as soon as he looks up, sees the blue sky, but how very 
far away it is. The mind goes everywhere, but the 
poor body takes a long time to crawl on the surface of 
the earth. So it is with all our ideals. The ideal is 
far away, and we are here far below. At the same time 
we know that we must have an ideal. We must even 
have the highest ideal. And we know that unfortu- 
nately the vast majority of persons are groping through 
this dark life of ours without any ideal at all. If a 
man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am 
sure the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. 
Therefore it is better to have an ideal. And this 
ideal we must hear as much as we can, hear till it 
enters into our hearts, enters into our brains, hear until 



GOD IN EVERYTHING 1 53 

it enters into our very veins, until it tingles in every 
drop of our blood, until it fills every pore in our body. 
We must meditate upon it. "Out of the fulness of the 
heart the mouth speaketh," and out of the fulness of 
the heart the hand works, too. 

It is thought which is the propelling force in us. i 
Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them | 
day after day, think of them month after month. 
Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are 
the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be 
without these failures ? It would not be worth having 
if it were not for the struggle. Where would be the 
poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mis- 
takes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is a cow 
— never a man. So never mind these failures, these 
little backslidings, hold the ideal a thousand times, 
and if you fail a thousand times make the attempt 
once more. This is the ideal of man, to see God in 
everything. If you cannot see Him in everything, see 
Him in one, in that thing which you like best, and 
then see Him in another. So on you can go. There 
is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and 
you will achieve your desire. 

"He, that One who vibrates more quickly than mind, 
who attains to more speed than mind can ever attain, 
to whom even the gods attain not, nor thought grasps, 
He moving, everything moves. In Him all exists. 
He is moving, He also is immovable. He is near and 
He is far. He is inside everything. He is the out- 
side of everything, interpenetrating everything. Who- 
ever sees in every human being that same Atman, and 
whoever sees everything in that Atman, he never goes 



154 JNANA YOGA 

far from that Atmaii." When all life and the whole 
universe are seen in this Atman, then man has attained 
the secret. There is no more delusion for him. 
Where is any more misery for him who sees this one- 
ness in the universe? 

This is another great theme of the Vedanta, this 
Oneness of life, Oneness of everything. We shall see 
how it demonstrates that all misery comes through 
ignorance, for this ignorance creates the idea of mani- 
foldness, of separation between man and man, between 
nation and nation, between earth and moon, between 
moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation between 
atom and atom arises all misery, but the Vedanta says 
this separation does not exist, that it is not real. It 
is merely apparent, on the surface. In the heart of 
things there is Unity still. If you go inside you find 
that Unity between man and man, between races and 
races, high and low, rich and poor, gods and men, 
and animals too. If you go deep enough all will be 
seen as only variations of the One, and he who has 
attained to this conception of Oneness has no more 
delusion. He has reached that Unity which we call 
God in theology. Where is there any more delusion 
for him? What can delude him? He knows the 
reality of everything, the secret of everything. Where 
is there any more misery for him? What does he 
desire? He has traced the reality of everything unto 
the Uord, that centre, that Unity of everything, and 
that is Eternal Existence, Eternal Knowledge, Eternal 
Bliss. Neither death nor disease, nor sorrow nor 
misery, nor discontent is there. All is Perfect Union 
and Perfect Bliss. For whom should he mourn then ? 



GOD IN EVERYTHING 1 55 

In reality there is no death, there is no misery ; in the 
centre, the Reality, there is no one to be mourned for, 
no one to be sorry for. He has penetrated everything, 
the Pure One, the Formless, the Bodiless, the Stainless, 
He the Knower, He the Great Poet, the Self-Existent, 
He who is giving to every one what he deserves. 
They are groping in darkness who are worshipping 
this ignorant world, the world that is produced out of 
ignorance. Those who are worshipping this world, 
thinking of it as Existence, are groping in darkness, 
and those who live their whole lives in this world, and 
never find anything better or higher, are groping in 
still greater darkness. 

But he who knows the secret of beautiful nature, 
thinking of pure nature through the help of nature, 
he crosses death, and through the help of that which 
is pure nature, he enjoys Eternal Bliss. "Thou Sun, 
thou hast covered the truth with thy golden disk. Do 
thou open that for me so that I may see the truth which 
is inside thee. I have known the truth that is inside 
thee, I have known what is the real meaning of thy 
rays and thy glory, and have seen that which shines 
in thee; the truth in thee I see, and that which is 
within thee is within me also, and I in thee." 



REALIZATION 

I WILL read to you from one of the simplest, but, I 
think, one of the most poetical of the Upanishads. 
It is called the Katha Upanishad. Some of you, per- 
haps, have read the translation by Sir Edwin Arnold, 
called "The Secret of Death." In our last lecture we 
saw how the inquiry which started with the origin of 
the world, and the creation of the universe, failed to 
obtain a satisfactory answer from without, and how 
it then turned inward. This book psychologically 
takes up that suggestion, questioning into the internal 
nature of man. It was first asked who created the 
external world, how it came into being, and now the 
question is, what is that in man which makes him live 
and move, and what becomes of it when the man dies. 
The first philosophers studied the material substance, 
and tried to reach the ultimate through that. At the 
best they found a personal Governor of the Universe, 
a human being immensely magnified, but yet to all 
intents and purposes a human being. But that cannot 
be the whole of truth; at best it can only be partial 
truth. We see this universe as human beings, and 
our God is our human explanation of the universe. , 

Suppose a cow were philosophical and had religion, it 
would have a Cow Universe, and a cow solution of the 

156 



REALIZATION 1 57 

problem, and it would not be necessary that it should 
see our God. Suppose cats became philosophers, they 
would see a Cat Universe and have a cat solution of 
the problem of the universe, some Cat ruling it. So 
we see from this that our explanation of the universe 
is not the whole of the solution. Neither does our 
conception cover the whole of the universe. It would 
be a great mistake to accept that tremendously selfish 
position which man is apt to take. Such a solution of 
the universal problem as we can get from the outside, 
labors under this difficulty, that in the first place the 
universe we see is our own particular universe, our 
own view of the Reality. That Reality we cannot see 
through the senses; we cannot comprehend it. We 
only know the universe from the point of view of 
beings with five senses. Suppose we obtain another 
sense, the whole universe must change for us. Sup- 
pose we had a magnetic sense ; it is quite possible that 
we might find millions and millions of varieties of 
forces in existence which we do not yet know, for 
which we have no present sense or feeling. Our 
senses are limited, very limited indeed, and within 
those limitations exists what we call our universe, and 
our God is the solution of our universe, but that can- 
not be the solution of the whole problem. It cannot 
be; it is nothing, so to say. But man cannot stop. 
He is a thinking being, and he wants to find a solution 
which will comprehensively explain all universes. He 
wants to see a world which is at once the world of 
men and of God, and of all beings possible and impos- 
sible, and he wants to find one solution which will 
explain all phenomena. 



158 JNANA YOGA 

We see we must first find the Universe where all 
universes are one ; we must find something which, by 
itself, of a logical necessity must be the background, 
the material running through all these various planes 
of existence, whether we apprehend it through the 
senses or not. If we could possibly find something 
which we could know as the common property of the 
lower worlds, as also of the higher worlds, although 
we do not see them, but by the sheer force of logic 
could understand that this must be the basis of all 
existence, then our problem would approach to some 
sort of solution; but this solution certainly cannot be 
obtained from the world we see and know, because 
that is only one view of the whole. 

The only hope then lies in penetrating deeply. The 
early thinkers discovered that the further they were 
from the centre, the more marked were the variation 
and differentiation, and the nearer they approached the 
centre the nearer they were to unity. The nearer we 
are to the centre of a circle the nearer we are to the 
common ground in which all the radii meet, and the 
farther we are from the centre, the more differentiated 
is our radical line from the others. The external 
world is farther and farther away from the centre, 
and so there is no common ground where all the 
phenomena of existence meet. At best the external 
world is but one part of the whole of phenomena. 
There are other parts, the mental phenomena, the 
moral phenomena, the intellectual phenomena, the 
various planes of existence, and to take up only one, 
and find a solution of the whole out of that one, 
would be simply impossible. We first, therefore, want 



REALIZATION 1 59 

to find somewhere a centre from which, as it were, all 
the other planes of existence start, and standing there,, 
we will try to find a solution. That is the proposition. 
And where is that centre? It is inside, internal man. 
Going deeper and deeper inside, the ancient sages 
found that there, in the innermost core of the human 
soul, is the centre of the whole universe. All the 
planes gravitate towards that one point; there is the 
common ground, and standing there alone can we find 
a common solution. So the question who made this 
world is not philosophical, nor does its solution amount 
to anything. 

This Katha Upanishad speaks in very figurative 
language. There was in ancient times, a very rich 
man, who made a certain sacrifice which required that 
he who made it should give away everything that he 
had. Now this man was not sincere. He wanted to 
get the fame and glory of having made the sacrifice, 
which required the giving away of everything, but 
at the same time he was only giving things which were 
of no further use to him — old cows, half dead, barren, 
with one eye, and lame. Now he had a boy called 
Nachiketas. This boy saw that his father was not 
doing what was right, that he was breaking his vow, 
and he did not know what to say. In India the father 
and mother are living gods ; a child dare not do any- 
thing before them, or speak before them, but simply 
stands. And so the boy appreached the father, and 
because he could not make a direct inquiry he asked 
him, "Father, to whom are you going to give me? 
Your sacrifice requires that everything shall be given 
away." The father became very much vexed. "What 



l60 J NANA YOGA 

do you mean, boy? A father giving away his own 
son?" The boy asked the question a second and a 
third time, and then the angry father answered, "Thee 
I give unto Death" ( Yama) . And the story goes on 
to say that the boy went unto Death. There is a god 
called Yama, the first man who died. He went to 
heaven and became the governor of all the Pitris; all 
the good people who die, go and live with him for a 
long time. He is a very pure and holy person (i.e., 
yama), chaste and good and pure is this Yama. The 
boy went to Yama's world. Even gods are sometimes 
not at home, and so three days this boy had to wait 
there. After the third day Yama returned. 

"O, learned one," says Yama, "you have been wait- 
ing here for three days without food, and you are a 
guest worthy of respect. Salutation to thee, O Brah- 
man, and welfare to me. I am very sorry I was not 
at home. But for that I will make amends. Ask 
three boons, one for each day." And the boy asked. 
"My first boon is that my father's anger against me 
may pass away, that he be kind to me and recognize 
me when you allow me to depart." Yama granted 
this fully. The next boon was that he wanted to know 
about a certain sacrifice which took people to heaven. 
Now we have seen that the oldest idea which we got 
in the Samhita portion of the Vedas was only about 
heaven, where they had bright bodies, and lived with 
the fathers. Gradually other ideas came, but they 
were not sufficient; there was need for something 
higher yet. Living in heaven would not be very dif- 
ferent from life in this world. At best it would only 
be a verjr healthy rich man's life, plenty of enjoyment 



REALIZATION l6l 

of the senses, plenty of things to enjoy, a sound body 
which knows no disease. It would be this material 
world a little more refined, and just as we have seen, 
there is this difficulty, that this external material world 
can never solve the problem. So it would be there; 
no heaven can solve the problem. If this world can- 
not solve the problem no multiplication of this world 
can do so, because we must always remember that 
matter is only an infinitesimal part of the phenomena 
of nature. The vast part of phenomena which we 
actually see is not matter. 

For instance, in every moment of our life how much 
is our own feeling, how much is thought phenomena, 
and how much is actual phenomena outside? How 
much do we feel and touch and see? How vast is the 
external world with its tremendous activity ! And the 
sense phenomena are very small compared with the 
mental phenomena. The heaven solution commits this 
mistake ; it insists that the whole of phenomena is 
only in touch, taste, sight, etc., so this idea of heaven 
where we are to live with very bright bodies, did not 
give full satisfaction to all. Yet Nachiketas asks as 
the second boon for some sacrifice through which 
people might attain to this heaven. There was an 
idea in the Vedas that these sacrifices pleased the 
gods and took human beings to heaven. Now, in 
studying all religions you will find the inevitable fact 
that whatever is old becomes holy. For instance, our 
forefathers in India used to write on birch bark, but 
in time they learned how to make paper. Yet the 
birch bark is still looked upon as very holy. When 
the utensils in which they used to cook in the most 



1 62 J NANA YOGA 

ancient times were improved upon, the old became 
holy, and nowhere has this idea been more kept up 
than in India. Old methods, which must be nine or 
ten thousand years old, of rubbing two sticks together 
to make fire, are still kept up. At the time of sacri- 
fice no other method will do. So with the other 
branch of the Asiatic Aryans. Their modern descen- 
dants still like to preserve fire that comes from light- 
ning, showing that they used to get fire in this 
way, afterwards learning to obtain it by rubbing 
two pieces of wood, and when they learned other 
customs they kept up the old customs, which then 
became holy. 

So with the Hebrews. They used to write on 
parchment. They now write on paper, and the other 
method is very holy. So with all nations, every rite 
which you now consider holy was simply an old 
custom, and these sacrifices were of this nature. In 
course of time, as they found better methods of life, 
their ideas were much improved, still, these old forms 
remained, and from time to time they were practised, 
and received a holy significance. Then a body of men 
made it their business to carry on these sacrifices. 
These were the priests, and they speculated on the 
sacrifices, and the sacrifices became everything to 
them. The gods came to enjoy the fragrance of the 
sacrifices, and everything in this world could be got 
by the power of sacrifices. If certain oblations were 
made, certain hymns chanted, certain peculiar forms of 
altars made, the gods would grant everything. So 
Nachiketas asks by what form of sacrifice a man will 
go to heaven. This second boon was also readily 



REALIZATION 163 

granted by Yama, who promised that this sacrifice 
should henceforth be named after Nachiketas. 

Then the third boon comes, and with that the 
Upanishad proper begins. The boy says: "There is 
this difficuhy ; when a man dies some say he is, others 
that he is not. Instructed by you, I desire to under- 
stand this." 

Yama is frightened. He was very glad to satisfy 
the other two boons. Now he says, "The gods in 
ancient times were puzzled on this point. This subtle 
law is not easy to understand. Choose some other 
boon, O Nachiketas, do not press me, release me on 
this point." The boy was determined and said, 
"What thou hast said is true, O Death, that even the 
gods doubted on this point, and it is no easy matter 
to understand. But I cannot obtain another exponent 
like you and there is no other boon equal to this." 

Death said: "Ask for sons and grandsons who will 
live one hundred years, many cattle, elephants, gold 
and horses. Ask for empire on this earth and live as 
many years as you like. Or choose any other boon 
which you think equal to these — wealth and long life. 
Or be thou a king, O Nachiketas, on the wide earth 
I will make thee enjoyer of all desires. Ask for all 
those desires which are difficult to obtain in this 
world. These heavenly maidens with chariots and 
music which are not to be obtained by men. Let 
these, which I will give to you, serve you, O Nachike- 
tas, but do not ask me what comes after death." 

Nachiketas said : "These are merely things of a day, 
O Death, they bear away the energy of all the sense- 
organs. The longest life even is very short. These 



164 JNANA YOGA 

horses and chariots and dances and maidens may 
remain with thee. Man cannot be satisfied by wealth. 
Shall we retain wealth when we behold Thee? We 
shall live only so long as Thou desirest. Only the 
boon which I have asked is to be chosen by me.'' 

Yama is pleased with this answer and replies : "Per- 
fection is one thing and enjoyment another, these 
two having different ends, bind a man. He who 
( chooses perfection becomes pure. He who chooses 
enjoyment misses his true end. Both perfection and 
enjoyment present themselves to man; the wise man 
having examined both distinguishes one from the 
other. He chooses perfection as being superior to 
enjoyment, but the foolish chooses enjoyment for the 
benefit of his body. O Nachiketas, having thought 
upon the things which are desirable or apparently so, 
thou hast abandoned them." Death then proceeds to 
teach Nachiketas. 

We now get a very developed idea of renunciation 
and Vedic morality — that until one has conquered the 
/desire for enjoyment the truth will not shine in him. 
So long as the vain desires of our senses are clamoring 
and, as it were, dragging us every moment outward, 
making us slaves to everything outside, a little bit of 
color, a little bit of taste, a little bit of touch, dragging 
the human soul out, notwithstanding all our preten- 
sions, how can the truth express itself in our hearts? 
"That which is to follow never rises before the mind 
of a thoughtless child deluded by the folly of riches. 
This world exists, the other does not, thinking thus 
they come again and again under my power," says 
Yama. 



REALIZATION 1 65 

To understand this truth is very difficult. Many, 
even hearing it continually, do not understand, for the 
speaker must be wonderful, so must be the hearer. 
The teacher must be wonderful, so must be the taught. 
Neither is the mind to be disturbed by vain argument, 
for it is no more a question of argument, it is a ques- 
tion of fact. We have always heard that there is a 
path in every religion which insists on our faith. We 
have been taught to believe blindly. Well, this idea 
of blind faith is objectionable, no doubt — no doubt it 
is very objectionable — but analyzing it we find that 
behind it is a very great truth. What it really means 
is what we read now. The mind is not to be ruffled 
by vain arguments, because argument will not bring 
us to know God. It is a question of fact, and not of 
argument. All argument and reasoning must be 
based upon certain principles. Without these princi- 
ples there cannot be any argument. Reasoning is the 
method of comparison between certain facts which we 
have already absolutely perceived. If these absolutely 
perceived facts are not there already, there cannot be 
any reasoning. Just as it is true in the external sense, 
why should it not be at the same time true in the 
internal? The external sensations all depend on 
actual experiences. You are not asked to believe in 
any assertions, but the rules become established by 
actual demonstration, not in the form of argument, 
but by actual perception. 

All arguments are based upon certain perceptions. 
The chemist takes certain things and certain results 
are produced. This is a fact ; you see it, sense it, and 
make that the basis on which to build all your chemi- 



l66 JNANA YOGA 

cal arguments. So with the physicists, so with all 
other sciences, all knowledge must stand on certain 
perception of facts, and upon that we have to build, 
our reasoning. But, curiously enough, the vast 
majority of mankind think, especially at the present 
time, that no such perception is possible in religion, 
that religion can only be apprehended by vain argu- 
ments outside. Therefore we are told, the mind is 
not to be disturbed by vain arguments. Religion is ' 
a question of fact, not of talk. CWe have to analyze \ 
our own souls and to find what is there. We have to 
understand it and to realize what is understood. That 
is religion. No amount of talk will make religion. 
So the question of whether there is a God or not can 
never be proved by argument, for the arguments are as 
much on one side as the other. But if there be a God, 
He is in our own hearts. Have you ever seen Him? 
Just as the question as to whether this world exists or 
not has not yet been decided, so the debate between 
the idealists and the realists is eternal. It is a fact, 
yet we only know that the world exists, that it goes on. 
We only change the meaning of the word. So with 
all the questions of life, we must come back to facts. 
There are certain facts which are to be perceived, and 
there are certain religious facts, as in external science, 
that have to be perceived, and upon them religion will 
be built. Of course the extreme claim that you must 
believe any dogma of a religion is degrading to the 
human mind. That man who asks you to believe any- 
thing degrades himself, and, if you believe, degrades 
you too. The only right that the sages of the world 
have to tell us anything, is that they have analyzed 



REALIZATION 167 

their own minds and have found these facts, and if 
we do the same, we shall believe, and not before. 
That is all that there is in religion. But you must 
always remember this, that as a matter of fact 99.9 
per cent, of those who attack religion have never 
analyzed their minds, have never struggled to get at, 
the facts. So their arguments do not have any weight 
against religion, any more than those of a blind man 
who cries against the sun, *'You are all fools who 
believe in the sun." That would have no weight with 
us. So the arguments of these people who have not 
gone to work to analyze their own minds, yet at the 
same time try to pull down religion, should have no 
weight with us. 

This is one great idea to learn and to hold on 
to, this idea of realization. This turmoil and fight 
and difference in religions will only cease when we 
understand that religion is not in books, neither in 
temples, nor in the senses. It is an actual percep- ^ 
tion, and only the man who has actually perceived 
God and perceived soul, has religion, while all men 
who have not done that are alike. There is no real 
difference between the highest ecclesiastical giant, 
who can talk by the volume, and the lowest, most ^ 
ignorant materialist. We are all atheists ; let us con- ) 
fess it. Mere intellectual assent will not make us 
religious, and it does not. Take a Christian, or a 
Mohammedan, or a follower of any religion in the 
world. See the Sermon on the Mount. Any man 
who truly realized it would be a god immediately, 
would be perfect, and yet it is said that there are 
many millions of Christi2in3 in the world. Do you 



1 68 JNANA YOGA 

mean to say they are all Christians? What is meant 
is, that mankind may at some time try to realize that 
sermon. Not one in twenty millions is a real Chris- 
tian. 

So, in India, there are said to be three hundred 
millions of Vedantins. If there were one in a thou- 
sand who had actually realized religion, this world 
would soon be greatly changed. We are all atheists, 
and yet we try to fight the man who admits it. We 
are all in the dark; religion is to us a mere nothing, 
mere intellectual assent, mere talk — this man talks 
well, and that man ill — this to us is religion. "Won- 
derful methods of joining words, rhetorical powers, 
and explaining texts of the books in various ways, 
.the^e are for the enjoyment of the learned, not 
religion." Religion will begin when that actual reali- 
zation in our own souls begins. That will be the 
dawn of religion; then we shall become religious; 
then, and then alone, morality will begin. Now we 
are not much more moral than the animals in the 
streets. We are only held down by the whips of 
society. If society said to-day I will not punish you 
if you go and steal, we should just make a rush for 
every one's property. It is the policeman that makes 
the majority of us moral. It is social opinion that 
makes a great deal of our morality, and really we are 
little better than the animals. We understand how 
much this is so, in the secret of our own rooms. So 
let us not be hypocrites. Let us confess that we are 
not religious and have no right to look down on 
others. We are all brothers, and we shall be moral, 
we hope, when we have realized religion. 



REALIZATION 1 69 

If you have seen a certain country, a man may cut 
you to pieces, but you will never in your heart of 
hearts say you have not seen the country. Extra- 
ordinary physical . force may compel you to say you 
have not seen it, but in your own mind you know you 
have seen it. When you see Religion and God in a 
more intense sense than you see this external world, 
nothing will be able to shake your belief. Then will 
real faith begm. That is what is meant by the words 
in your Gospel : *'He who has faith even as a grain of 
mustard seed." Then you will know the truth because 
you have become the truth, for mere intellectual assent 
is nothing. 

The one idea is, does this realization exist? This 
is the watchword of Vedanta, realize religion, no talk- 
ing will do, but it is only to be done with great 
difficulty. He has hidden Himself inside the atom, 
the Ancient One who resides in the inmost recess of 
every human heart. The sages realized Him through 
the power of introspection, and then they got beyond 
both joy and misery, beyond what we call virtue, 
beyond what we call vice, beyond our bad deeds, 
beyond our good deeds, beyond being and non-being, 
he who has seen Him has seen the Reality. But what 
then about the idea of heaven? It was the idea of 
happiness minus unhappiness. That is to say, what 
we want, is all the joys of this life minus its sorrows. 
That is a very good idea, no doubt; it comes natural- 
ly ; but it is a mistake throughout, because there is no 
such thing as absolute good, nor any such thing as 
absolute sorrow. 

You have all heard of that very rich man in Rome 



170 



J NANA YOGA 



who learned one day that he had only about a million 
pounds left of his property, and said : *'What shall I 
do to-morrow ?" and forthwith committed suicide. A 
million pounds was poverty to him. What is joy, 
and what is sorrow? It is a vanishing quantity, con- 
tinually vanishing. When I was a child I thought if 
I could become a cabman that would be the very acme 
of happiness for me, just to drive about. I do not 
think so now. To what joy will you cling? This is 
one point we must all try to understand, and it is one 
of the last superstitions to leave us. Every one's 
pleasure is different. I have seen a man who is not 
happy unless he swallows a lump of opium every day. 
He may dream of a heaven where the land is made of 
opium. It would be a very bad heaven for me. Again 
and again in Arabian poetry we read of heaven full of 
gardens, where rivers run below. I have lived much 
of my life in a country where there is too much water ; 
some villages and a few thousand lives are sacrificed 
to it every year. So my heaven would not have gar- 
dens beneath which rivers flow ; I would have dry land 
where very little rain falls. So with life, our pleas- 
ures are always changing. If a young man dreams of 
heaven he dreams of a heaven where he will have a 
beautiful wife. Let that very man become old and 
he does not want a wife. It is our necessities which 
^ make our heaven, and the heaven changes with the 
j change of our necessities. If we had a heaven where 
all these things were intensified, the heaven desired by 
those to whom this sense enjoyment is the very end 
of existence, we should not progress. That would be 
the most terrible curse we could pronounce on the souL 



REALIZATION I7I 

Is this all we can come to ? A little weeping and danc- 
ing, and then to die like a dog. What a curse you 
pronounce on the head of humanity when you long 
for these things ! That is what you do when you cry 
after the joys of this world, for you do not know what 
joy is. What philosophy insists on is not to give up 
joys, but to know what joy really is. The Norwegian 
heaven is a tremendous fighting place, where they all 
sit before Wodin, and then comes a wild boar hunt, 
and then they go to war and slash each other to 
pieces. But somehow or other, after a few hours of 
such fighting the wounds are all healed up, and they 
go into a hall, where the boar has been roasted, and 
have a carousal. And then the wild boar is made up 
again to be hunted the next day. That is quite the 
same thing, not a whit worse than our ideas, only our 
ideas are a little more refined. We want to hunt all 
these wild boars, and get to a place where all the 
enjoyments will continue, just as they imagine that 
the wild boar is hunted and eaten every day, and 
recovers the next day. 

Now philosophy insists that there is a joy which is 
absolute, which never changes, and therefore that joy 
cannot be the joys and pleasures we have in this life, 
and yet it is Vedanta alone that proves that every- 
thing that is joyful in this life is but a particle of that 
real joy, because that is the only joy there is. Every 
moment we are really enjoying the absolute bliss, cov- 
ered up, misunderstood, caricatured. Wherever there 
is any blessing, any blissfulness, any joy, even the joy 
of the thief in stealing from somebody else, it is that 
absolute bliss coming out through him, only it has 



1/2 J NANA YOGA 

become obscured, muddled up as it were, with all sorts 
of extraneous circumstances, caricatured, misunder- 
stood, and that is what we call the thief. But, to 
understand that, we have first to go through the nega- 
tion, and then the positive side will begin. First we 
have to give up all that is ignorance, all that is false, 
and then truth will begin for us. When we have 
grasped the truth these things which we have given 
up at first will take a new shape and form, will appear 
to us in a new light, they will all have become deified. 
They will have become sublimated, we shall under- 
stand them then in their real light. But to under- 
stand them we have first to get a glirnpse of truth, and 
we must give them up first, and then take thernback 
again deified. Therefore we have to give up all our 
miseries and sorrows, all our little joys. They are 
but different degrees of happiness or misery as we( 
may call it. "That which all the Vedas declare, which ^ 
is proclaimed by all penances, seeking which men lead S 
lives of continence, I will tell you ih one word — it is ; 
*Om.' *' You will find this word "Om" praised very / 
much in the Vedas, and it is held to be very sacred. } 

Now Yama answers the question — "What becomes 
of a man when the body dies?" "This Wise One 
never dies, is never born ; it arises from nothing, noth- 
ing arises from it. Unborn, Eternal, Everlasting, 
this Ancient One can never be destroyed with the 
destruction of the body. If the killer thinks he can 
kill, or if the killed thinks he is slain, they both do 
not know the truth, for the Self neither kills nor is 
killed." A most tremendous position. The one adjec- 
tive in the first line is "wise" One. As you go on you 



REALIZATION r73 

will find that the ideal of Vedanta is, that all wisdom, 
and all purity are in the soul already — dimly expressed, 
or better expressed — that is the only difference. The 
difference between man and man, and all things in the 
whole creation is not in kind but only in degree. The 
background, the reality of every one is that same eter- 
nal, ever blessed, ever pure, and ever perfect One. 
That is the Atman, the soul, in the sinner or the sin- 
less, in the happy or the unhappy, in the beautiful or 
the ugly, in man or animals, it is the same throughout. 
He is the Shining One. The difference is caused by 
the power of expression. In some it is expressed 
more, in others less, but this difference of expression 
has no effect upon Him, the Atman. If in his cloth- 
ing one shows more of his body, and another less, it 
would not make any difference in the bodies. The dif- 
ference is in the clothes that cover or do not cover the 
body. According to the covering, the body and the 
man, its powers, its purity begin to shine. Therefore 
we had better remember here also, that throughout the 
Vedanta philosophy, there is no such thing as good and 
bad, they are not two different things ; the same thing 
is good or bad, and the difference is only in degree, and 
that we see to be an actual fact. The very thing I call 
pleasurable to-day, to-morrow under better circum- 
stances, I may call pain. So the difference is only in 
the degree, the manifestation, not in the thing itself. 
There is no such thing as what we call good or bad. 
The fire that warms us, would also consume us,* it 
would not be the fault of the fire. Thus, the soul 
being pure and perfect, the man who wants to do evil 
is giving the lie unto himself, he does not know the 



174 JNANA YOGA 

nature of himself. Even in the murderer the pure 
soul is there; it dies not. It was his mistake; he 
could not manifest it; he had covered it up. Nor in 
the man who thinks that he is killed is the soul 
killed; it is the eternal, never killed, never destroyed. 
"Infinitely smaller than the smallest, infinitely larger 
than the largest, yet this Lord of all is present in the 
depths of every human heart. The sinless, bereft of 
all misery, see Him through the mercy of the Lord; 
the bodiless, yet living in the body, the spaceless, yet 
seeming to occupy space, infinite, omnipresent ; know- 
ing such to be the soul, the sages never are miserable." 
This Atman is not to be realized by the power of 
speech, nor by a vast intellect, nor by the study of the 
Vedas. This is a very bold thing. As I told you 
before, the sages were very bold thinkers, never 
stopped at anything. You will remember that in India 
these Vedas are regarded in such a light as the 
Christians never regarded the Bible. Your idea of 
revelation is, that a man was inspired by God; but 
their idea was, that things exist because they are in 
the Vedas. In and through the Vedas the whole 
creation has come. All that is called knowledge is in 
the Vedas. Every word is sacred and eternal, eternal 
as the created man, without beginning and without 
end. As it were, the whole of the Creator's mind is 
in this book. That was the light in which they held 
the Vedas. Why is this moral? Because the Vedas 
say so. Why is this immoral ? Because the Vedas say 
so, and in spite of that, see these bold men. No, the 
truth is not to be found by much study of the Vedas. 
"With whom the Lord is pleased, unto that man He 



REALIZATION 175 

expresses Himself." But then, the objection may be 
advanced — this is something Hke partisanship. But 
Yama explains: "Those who are evil doers, whose 
minds are not peaceful, can never know the light." 
It is those who are true in heart, pure in their deeds, 
whose senses have become controlled, unto them this 
Self manifests Itself. 

Here is a beautiful figure. Picture the Self to be 
the rider and this body the chariot, the intellect to be 
the charioteer, the mind the reins, and the senses the 
horses. In that chariot, where the horses are well 
broken, where the reins are strong and kept well in 
the hands of the charioteer (the intellect), that chariot 
reaches the goal which is the state of Him the Omni- 
present. But where the horses (the senses), are not 
controlled, nor the reins (the mind), well managed, 
that chariot comes to destruction. This Atman in 
all beings does not manifest Himself to the eyes or 
the senses, but those whose minds have become puri- 
fied and refined, they see Him. Beyond all sound, 
all sight, beyond form, absolute, beyond all taste and 
touch; infinite, without beginning and without end, 
even beyond nature, the unchangeable, he who realizes 
Him, frees himself from the jaws of death. But it 
is very difficult. It is, as it were, walking on the 
blade of a razor; the way is long and perilous, but 
struggle on, do not despair. "Awake, arise, and stop 
not till the goal is reached." 

Now you see that the one central idea throughout 
all the Upanishads is that of realization. A great 
many questions will arise from time to time, and 
especially to the modern man. There will be the ques- 



176 JNANA YOGA 

tion of utility, there will be various other questions, 
but in all we shall find, that we are prompted by our 
past associations. It is association of ideas that has 
such a tremendous power in our mind. To those who 
from childhood have always heard about a personal 
God and the personality of the mind, these ideas will 
of course appear very stern and harsh, but if we 
listen to them, think of them for a long time, they 
will become part and parcel of our lives, and will no 
longer frighten us. The great question that gener- 
ally arises of course is the utility of philosophy. To 
that there can be only one answer, that if on the 
utilitarian ground it is good for men to seek for 
pleasure, why should not those whose pleasure is in 
religious speculation seek that? Because sense enjoy- 
ments please many, they seek for them, but there may 
be others whom they do not please, who want higher 
enjoyment. The dog's pleasure is only in eating and 
drinkmg. The dog cannot understand the pleasure 
of the scientist who gives up everything, and perhaps 
dwells on the top of a mountain to observe the posi- 
tion of certain stars. The dog may smile at him and 
think he is a madman. Perhaps this poor scientist 
never had money enough to marry even; he eats a 
few bits of bread and drinks water and sits on the 
top of a mountain. Perhaps this dog laughs at him. 
But the scientist will say, ''My dear dog, your pleas- 
ure is only in the senses; you enjoy it; you know 
nothing beyond it, but for me this is the most enjoya- 
ble thing, and if you have the right to seek your 
pleasure in your own way so have I, in my own way." 
The mistake is that we want to tie the whole world 



REALIZATION 177 

down to our own plane, we want to make our minds 

the measure of the whole universe. To you the old 

sense things are perhaps the greatest pleasure, but it 

is not necessary that my pleasure should be the same, 

and when you insist upon that, I differ from you. 

That is the difference between the worldly utilitarian 

and the religious man. The worldly utilitarian says : 

"See how happy I am. I get a little money, but about 

all these other things I do not bother my head. They 

are too unsearchable, and so I am happy.*' So far, 

so good; good for all you utilitarians. This world 

is terrible. If any man gets happiness in any way 

excepting by injuring his fellow beings, God speed 

him, but when this man comes to me and says you 

too must do these things; you will be a fool if you 

do not, I say you are wrong, because the very things 

which are pleasurable to you, have not the slightest 

attraction for me. If I had to go after a few hand- 

fuls of gold, my life would not be worth living! I 

would die. That is the answer the religious man 

would make to him. The fact is that religion is only 

possible for those who have finished with these lower ; ^^^-^— , 

things. We must have our experiences, must have ) 

our full run. It is only when we have finished this ] 

run that the other world opens. 

There is a great problem that arises in my mind. 
It is a very harsh thing to say, and yet a fact. These 
enjoyments of the senses sometimes assume another 
phase which is very dangerous and tempting. This 
idea you will always hear — it was in very old times, 
in every religion — ^that a time will come when all the 
miseries of life will cease, and only its joys and pleas- 



178 J NANA YOGA 

ures will remain, that this earth will thus become a 
heaven. That I do not believe. This earth of ours 
will always remain this same world. It is a most 
terrible thing to say, yet I do not see my way out 
of it. It is like rheumatism; drive it from the head, 
it goes to the legs, drive it from there it goes to other 
parts. Whatever you do is there. So is misery. 
In olden times people lived in forests, and they ate 
each other up; in modern times they do not eat each 
other's flesh, but they cheat one another. They ruin 
whole countries and cities by cheating. That is not 
great progress ; I do not see that what you call 
progress in the world is other than multiplication of 
desires. If one thing is obvious to me it is this, that 
desires bring all misery, the state of the beggar, always 
begging for something, unable to see anything without 
the idea of having it; having, having, everything. 
The whole life is the life of the thirsty, thirsty beggar, 
unquenchable thirst of desire. If the power to satis- 
fy our desires is increased in arithmetical progression, 
the power of desire is increased in geometrical pro- 
gression. The sum-total of happiness and misery in 
the world is at least the same throughout. If a wave 
rises in the ocean it makes a hollow somewhere. If 
happiness comes to a man unhappiness comes to some 
other, or to some animal. Men are increasing and 
animals are vanishing ; we are killing them, and taking 
their land ; we are taking all means of sustenance 
from them. How can we say that happiness is 
increasing? The strong race eats up the weaker, but 
do you think that the strong race will be very happy ? 
No; they will begin to kill each other. I do not see 



REALIZATION 179 

how it can be on practical grounds. It is a question 
of fact. On theoretical grounds, also, I see it cannot 
be. 

Perfection is always infinite. We are this infinite 
already, and we are trying to manifest that infinity. 
You and I and all beings are trying to manifest this 
infinity. So far it is all right. But from this fact, 
some German philosophers have tried to make out a 
very peculiar theory of philosophy — that this mani- 
festation will become higher and higher until we 
attain perfect manifestation, until we have become 
perfect beings. What is meant by perfect manifesta- 
tion? Perfection means infinity, and manifestation 
means limit, and so it means that we shall become 
unlimited limiteds ; which is self-contradictory. Such 
a doctrine may please children; it may be very nice 
to please children, to give them a comfortable religion, 
but it is poisoning them with lies, and it is bad for 
religion. We are told that this world is a degrada- 
tion, that man is a degradation of God, that Adam 
fell. There is no one religion to-day which does not 
teach you that man is a degradation. We have been 
degraded down to the animal; now we are going up, 
to emerge again, to get away from this bondage, 
but we shall never be able to manifest the infinite 
here. We shall struggle hard, and then find it impos- 
sible. There will come a time when we shall find that 
it is impossible to be perfect here, while we are 
bound by the senses. And then the march back will 
be sounded. 

This is renunciation. We shall have to get out of 
the difficulty as we got in, and then morality and 



l8o . J NANA YOGA 

charity will begin. What is the watchword of all 
ethical codes? ''Not I, but thou/' and this "I" is the 
outcome of the infinite behind, trying to manifest itself 
on the outside world. This little 'T' is the result. 
This is the result that has been obtained, and this 
little *T" will have to go back and join the infinite, 
its own nature. It will find that it has been making 
a false attempt. It has put its foot into the wheel and 
will have to get out, and this is being discovered every 
day. Every time you say: "Not I, my brother, but 
thou," you are trying to go back, and every time you 
forget the ideal, you say: *T, not thou." Struggles 
and evils are in the world, but after that must begin 
renunciation, eternal renunciation. Why care for this 
little life? All these vain desires of living here and 
enjoying this life, this thinking I will live and enjoy 
again in some other place — living always in the senses 
and in sense enjoyment — these ideas bring death. 

If we are developed animals the very same argu- 
ment can be worked out on the other side ; the animals 
also may be degraded men. How do you know it is 
not so? You have seen that the proof of evolution 
is simply this, that you find a series of bodies, one 
near to the other, from the lowest body to the highest 
body, but from that argument how can you insist that 
it is from the lower up, and not from the top down? 
The argument applies to both sides, and if anything 
is true I believe it is going up and down, the series 
repeating itself. How can you have an evolution 
without going back in the same series in which we 
came up? However it may be, the central idea to 
which I am referring is there. 



REALIZATION l8l 

Of course I am ready to be convinced the other 
way, that the infinite can manifest itself. As to the 
other idea — that we are going ever and ever in a 
straight line — I do not believe it; it is too nonsensical 
to believe. There is no motion in a straight line. If 
you could throw a stone forward with sufficient force, 
a time would come when it would complete the circle 
and return to its starting place. Do you not read 
the mathematical axiom, a straight line infinitely pro- 
jected becomes a circle? It must be so, only it may 
vary as to details. So I always cling to the side of 
the old religious ideas, when I hear Christ preachy 
and Buddha assert, and the Vedanta declare, and the 
Bible proclaim, that we must all come to perfection 
in time, but only by giving up this imperfection. This 
world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous carica- 
ture, a shadow of the reality. All the fools are rush- 
ing after sense-enjoyments. 

It is easy to live in the senses. It is easier to run 
in the old groove, eating and drinking ; but what these 
modern philosophers want to tell you is to take these 
comfortable ideas and put the stamp of religion on 
them. Such a doctrine is dangerous. Death is in the 
senses. We must go beyond death. It is not a reali- 
ty. Renunciation will take us to the reality. Renun- 
ciation is meant by morality.^ Renunciation is the 
vqry basis of our true life; every moment of good- 
ness and real life that we enjoy, is when we do not 
think of ourselves. This little separate self must die ; 
and then we shall find that we are in the Real, and the 
Vedanta says, that Reality is God, and He is our own 
real nature, and He is always in us and with us. 



1 82 J NANA YOGA 

Live in Him and stand in Him; although it seems to 
be so hard, it will become easier by-and-by. You 
will find that it is the only joyful state of existence; 
every other existence is of death. Life on the plane 
of the spirit is the only life, life on any other plane 
is mere death; the whole of this life can be only 
described as a gymnasium. We must go beyond it to 
enjoy real life. We must attain to Realization. 



XI 

THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 

The Katha Upanishad, which we have been study- 
ing, was written much later than that to which we 
now turn — the Chandogya. The language is more 
modern, and the thought more organized. In the 
older Upanishads the language is very archaic, like 
that of the hymn portions of the Veda, and one has 
to wade sometimes through quite a mass of unneces- 
sary things to get at the essential doctrines. The rit- 
ualistic literature about which I told you, which forms 
the second division of the Vedas, has, to a large extent, 
left its mark upon this old Upanishad, so that more 
than half of it is still ritualistic. There is, however, 
one great gain in studying the very old Upanishads; 
you trace, as it were, the historical springing up of 
spiritual ideas. In the more recent Upanishads the 
spiritual ideas have been collected and brought into 
one place, just as in the Bhagavad Gita, for instance, 
which we may perhaps look upon as the last of the 
Upanishads, and you do not find in them any inkling 
of these ritualistic ideas. Every verse of the Gita has 
been collected from some portion of the Upanishads, 
and made into a sort of bouquet. But therein you 
cannot understand the rise of the idea, you cannot 
trace it to its source, and to do that is, as has been 

183 



184 J NANA YOGA 

pointed out b)^ many, one of the great benefits of study- 
ing the Vedas ; for the great idea of holiness that has 
been attached to these books has preserved them, more 
than any other book in the world, from mutilation. 
There, thoughts at their highest and at their lowest 
level have all been preserved, essential and non-essen- 
tial. The most ennobling teachings and simple mat- 
ters of detail stand side by side, for nobody has dared 
to touch them. The commentators came, of course, 
and tried to smooth them out, and to bring out won- 
derful new ideas from very old things; they tried to 
find spiritual ideas in even the most ordinary state- 
ments, but the texts remained, and, as such, they are 
the most wonderful historical study. We all know 
that in every religion in later times, as thoughts began 
to grow and develop there came this spiritual progress. 
One word is changed here and one put in there; 
another is thrown out, apart from the commentators. 
This, probably, has not been done with the Vedic 
literature at all, or if ever done, it is almost imper- 
ceptible. So we have this great advantage, we are 
able to study thoughts in their original significance, 
to note how they developed, how from materialistic 
ideas, finer and finer spiritual ideas evolved, until they 
attained their greatest height in the Vedanta. Some 
of the old manners and customs are also there, but not 
very much in the Upanishads. The language is a 
peculiar terse mnemonic. 

The writers of these books simply jotted down these 
lines as helps to remember certain facts which they 
supposed were already well known. In a narrative, 
perhaps, as they are telling a story they take it for 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 185 

granted that it is well known to every one they are 
addressing, and thus a great difficulty arises; we 
scarcely know the real meaning of any one of these 
stories, because the traditions have nearly died out, and 
the little that is left has been very much exaggerated. 
So many new interpretations have been put on them 
that when you find them in the Puranas, they have al- 
ready become lyrical poems. Now, just as in the West, 
we find one fact in the political development of western 
races : that they cannot bear absolute rule, that they are 
always trying to throw off any sort of bondage, to pre- 
vent any one man from ruling over them, and are grad- 
ually advancing to higher and higher democratic ideas, 
higher and higher ideas of physical liberty, so in meta- 
physics exactly the same phenomenon appears in the 
development of spiritual life. Multiplicity of gods 
gives place to one God of the Universe, and in the 
Upanishads there is a rebellion against that one God. 
Not only was the idea of so many governors of the 
universe ruling their destinies unbearable, but it was 
also intolerable to them that there should be one person 
ruling this universe. This is the first thing that strikes 
us. The idea grows and grows, until it attains its 
climax. In almost all of the Upanishads we find the 
climax coming at the last, and that is the dethroning 
of this God of the Universe. The personality of God 
vanishes, the impersonality comes. God is no more a 
person, no more a human being, however magnified 
and exaggerated, ruling this universe, but God has 
become an embodied Principle in us, in every being, 
immanent in the whole universe. And of course it 
would be illogical to go from the personal God to the 



1 86 J NANA YOGA 

impersonal, and at the same time to leave man as a 
person. So the personal man has to be broken down, 
man is also a principle. The person is without, the 
principle is within. Thus from both sides simulta- 
neously we find the breaking down of personalities and 
the approach towards principles, the personal God 
approaching the impersonal, the personal man ap- 
proaching the impersonal man, and then come the suc- 
ceeding stages of delineating the difference between 
the two advancing lines of impersonal God and 
impersonal Man. And the Upanishads embody these 
succeeding stages, by which these two lines at last 
become one, and the last word of each Upanishad is, 
''Thou art That." There is but One eternally blissful, 
and that One Principle is manifesting Itself as all 
this variety. 

Then came the philosophers. The work of the 
Upanishads seems to have ended at that point; the 
next was taken up by the philosophers. The frame- 
work was given them by the Upanishads, and they 
had to work out the details. So, many questions 
would naturally arise. Taking for granted that there 
is but one impersonal Principle which is manifesting 
Itself in all these manifold forms, how is it that the 
One becomes many ? It is another way of putting the 
same old question which in its crude form comes into 
the human heart in the shape of an inquiry into the 
cause of evil and so forth. Why does evil exist in 
( the world, what is its cause? But the same question 
has now become refined, abstracted. No more is it 
asked from the platform of the senses why we are 
unhappy, but from the platform of philosophy. How 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 1 87 

is it that this one Principle becomes manifold? And 
the answer, as we have seen, the best answer that India 
produced, was the theory of Maya, that it really has 
not become manifold, that it really did not lose a bit 
of its real nature. This manifold is only apparent. \ 
Man is only apparently a person, and in reality he is 
the Impersonal Being. God is a person only appar- 
ently, but really He is the Impersonal Being of the 
Universe. 

Even in this answer there have been succeeding 
stages — philosophies have varied. All Indian philoso- 
phers did not admit this theory of Maya. Possibly 
most of them did not. There are the dualists, with 
a very crude sort of dualism, who would not allow 
the question to be asked, stifled it at its very coming 
into existence. They said you have no right to ask 
such a question, you have no right to ask for an ^ . 

explanation; it is simply the will of God, and we '%yhSuAdL 
have to submit quietly. There is no liberty for the 
human soul. It is all predestined — what we shall do, 
and have, and suffer, and enjoy, and it is our duty 
quietly to suffer, and if we do not we shall be punished 
all the more. How do we know that? Because the 
Vedas say so. And so they have their texts, their 
meanings, and they want to enforce them. The idea 
here is much like the theory of predestination preached 
by St. Paul. 

There are others who, though not admitting the 
Maya theory, stand midway, and try to explain all 
this by succeeding manifestations, succeeding develop- 
ment and degradation of the nature of man. All souls 
are metaphorically expanded and contracted in turn. 



I05 JNANA YOGA 

The whole of this creation forms, as it were, the body 
of God. God is the Soul of all souls and of the whole 
of nature. Creation means the expansion of this 
nature of God, and after it is expanded for a certain 
time it again begins to contract. In the case of indi- 
vidual souls the contraction comes from evil doing. 
When a man does anything evil his soul begins to 
contract in its power, and so on it goes, until it does 
good works, and then it expands again. One idea 
seems to be common in all these various Indian sys- 
tems, and to my mind in every system in the world, 
whether they know it or not, and that is what I should 
/call the Divinity of Man. There is no one system 
V in the world, no proper religion, which does not hold 
somewhere or other, either expressed in the language 
of mythology or in the language of allegory, or in 
the polished, clear language of philosophy, the one 
idea that the human soul, whatever it be, or whatever 
its relation to God, is essentially pure and perfect. 
Its real nature is blessedness and power, not weakness 
and misery. Somehow or other this misery has come. 
The crude systems may call in a personified evil, a 
devil, or an Ahriman to explain how this misery came. 
Other systems may try to make a God and a devil in 
one, making some people miserable and some happy, 
■ without any explanation whatever. Others again, 
more thoughtful, bring in the theory of Maya and so 
forth. But one fact stands out clearly, and it is with 
this that we have to deal. After all, these philosoph- 
ical ideas and systems are but the gymnastics of the 
mind, intellectual exercises. The one great idea that 
to me seems to be clear, and comes out through masses 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 189 

of superstition in every country and every religion, is 
the one luminous idea that man is divine, that that 
divinity is our nature. 

Whatever else comes is a mere super-imposition, as 
the Vedanta calls it. Something has been super- 
imposed, but that Divine Nature never dies. In the 
most degraded, as well as the most saintly, it is ever 
present. It has to be called out, and it will work itself 
out. We have to ask and it will manifest itself. The 
people of old fancied that fire lived in the flint, and 
that friction of the steel was necessary to call that fire 
out. Others believed that fire lived in two dry pieces 
of stick and that friction alone was necessary to cause 
it to manifest itself. So this fire of natural freedom 
and purity is the nature of every soul, not a quality, 
because qualities can be acquired and therefore can be 
lost. The soul is one with freedom, and the soul is 
one with existence, and the soul is one with knowl- 
edge ; this Sat-Chit-Ananda — Existence-Knowledge- 
Bliss Absolute — is the nature, the birthright of the 
soul, and all the manifestations that we see are the 
expressions of this nature of the soul, dimly or brightly 
manifesting itself. Even death itself is but the mani- 
festation of that Real Existence. Birth and death, 
life and decay, degradation and degeneration, or regen- 
eration, are all only the manifestations of that One- 
ness. So, knowledge, however it manifests itself, 
either as ignorance or as learning, is but the manifes- 
tation of that same Chit, that essence of knowledge;' 
the diflference is only in degree, and not in kind. The 
difference in knowledge between the lowest worm 
that crawls under our feet and the highest genius that 



190 JNANA YOGA 

the heavens may produce, is only one of degree, and 
not of kind. So the Vedantin thinker says boldly that 
the bliss of the enjoyments in this life, even the most 
(jdegraded joy, is but the manifestation of that one 
Divine Bliss, the essence of the soul. 

This one idea seems to be the most prominent, and, 
as I have said, to me it appears that every religion 
holds this same doctrine. I have yet to know the 
religion which has not that as its basis. It is the one 
universal idea working through all religions. Take 
the Bible for instance. You find there the allegorical 
statement, how Adam came first and was pure, and 
that purity was obliterated by his evil deeds after- 
wards. It is clear from this allegory that they thought 
that the nature of the primitive man, or however they 
may have put it, the real man, was already perfection. 
The impurities that we see, the weaknesses that we 
feel, are but super-impositions, and the subsequent 
history of that very religion shows that they also 
believe in the possibility, nay, the surety of regaining 
that old state. This is the whole history of the Bible, 
Old and New Testament together. So with the 
Mohammedans, they also believed in Adam and the 
purity of Adam, and since Mohammed came the way 
opened to regain that lost state. So with the Bud- 
dhists, they also believed in the state called Nirvana, 
which is beyond this relative world of ours. It is 
exactly the same which the Vedantins called the 
Brahman, and the whole system of the Buddhists is 
advice to regain that lost state of Nirvana, So in 
every system, we find this one doctrine always present, 
that you cannot get anything which is not yours 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL J9I 

already. You are indebted to nobody in this universe. 
You will claim your own birthright, or as it has been 
most poetically put by the great Vedantin philosopher, 
by making it the title of one of his books — "The 
attaining to our own empire." That empire is ours; 
we have lost it and we have to regain it. The Mdyd- 
avdin, however, says that this losing of the empire 
was an hallucination ; you never lost it. This is the 
only difference. 

Although all the systems agree so far, that we had 
the empire, and that we have lost it, they give us 
varied advice how to regain it. One says that you 
must perform certain ceremonies, pay certain sums 
of money to certain idols, eat certain sorts of food, 
live in a peculiar fashion to regain that empire. 
Another says that if you weep and prostrate yourselves 
and ask pardon of some Being beyond nature you will 
regain that empire. Another says, if you love such 
a Being with all your heart you will regain that 
empire. All this varied advice is in the Upanishads. 
As I go on you will find it so. But the last and 
the greatest counsel is, that you need not weep at 
all. You need not go through all these ceremonies, 
and need not take any notice of how to regain your 
empire, because you never lost it. Why should you 
go to seek for what you never lost. You are pure 
already, you are free already. If you think you 
i are free, free you are this moment, and if you think 
j you are bound, bound you will be. Not only that : 
it is a very bold statement — as I told you at the 
beginning of this course, I shall have to speak to 
you most boldly. It may frighten you now, but you 



192 JNANA YOGA 

will come to know by-and-by that it is true, when 
you think of it, and when you realize in your life the 
truth of it. For, supposing it is not your nature, 
that freedom is not your nature; by no manner of 
means can you become free. Supposing you were 
free and in some way you lost the freedom, then you 
cannot regain it, because that shows you were not 
free to commence with. Had you been free what 
could have bound you? The independent can never 
be made dependent, otherwise it was not independent, 
it was an hallucination. 

So, of the two sides which will you take ? If argu- 
ment is stated it comes to this. If you say that the 
soul was by its own nature pure and free, it naturally 
follows that there was nothing in this universe which 
could make it bound or limited. But if there was 
something in nature which could bind you, it naturally 
follows that the soul was not free, and your state- 
ment that it was free is a delusion. So you have to 
come to this idea, that the soul is by its nature free. 
It cannot be otherwise. Freedom means independence 
of anything outside, and that means that nothing out- 
side itself could work upon it as a cause. The soul 
is causeless, and hence come all the great ideas that 
we have. You cannot establish any idea of immor- 
tality unless you grant that the soul is by its nature 
free, or in other words, that it cannot be acted upon 
by anything outside. For death is an effect produced 
by something outside of man, showing that he can be 
acted upon by something else. I drink some poison 
and I am killed, showing that my body can be acted 
upon by something outside that is called poison. If 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL I93 

this be true of the soul, the soul is bound. But if it 
be true that the soul is free it naturally follows that 
nothing outside can work upon the soul, and never 
will ; therefore the soul will never die, it is beyond the 
law of causation. Freedom, immortality, blessedness, 
all depend on this, that the soul is beyond the law of 
causation, beyond this Maya. Very good. Now if 
your nature was originally perfectly free and we have 
become bound, that shows that we were not really 
free. It was untrue. But, on the other side, here 
is this proposition, that we are free, and that this idea 
of bondage is but a delusion. Of these two, which 
will you take? Either make the first a delusion, or 
make the second a delusion. Certainly I will make 
the second a delusion. It is more consonant with all 
my feelings and aspirations. I am perfectly aware that 
I am free by nature, and I will not admit that this 
bondage is true and my freedom a delusion. 

This discussion you see going on in all philosophies, 
taken in the crude form. Even in the most modern 
philosophies you find the same discussion entering. 
Here are the two parties. One party says that there is 
no soul, soul is a delusion. That delusion is being 
produced by the repeated transit of particles of matter, 
this combination which you call the body or the brain, 
and so on; its vibrations and motions and continuous 
transit of particles here and there, leaving that impres- 
sion of freedom. There were Buddhistic sects who 
said, if you take a torch, and whirl it round you 
rapidly, there will be a circle of light. That does 
not exist, because the torch is changing place every 
moment. We are but bundles of little particles, which 



194 J NANA YOGA 

in the rapid whirling produce this delusion. On the 
other hand there is the statement, that this body is 
true, and the soul does not exist. Another explana- 
tion is, that in the rapid interchange of thought matter 
occurs as a delusion, but matter does not really exist. 
These remain to the present day, one side claiming 
that spirit is a delusion and the other that matter is 
a delusion. Which side will you take ? Of course we 
will take the spirit side and deny the matter side. 
The arguments are the same for both sides, only on 
the spirit side the argument is a little stronger. For 
nobody has even seen what matter is. We can only 
feel ourselves. I never saw a man who could feel 
matter outside of himself. Nobody was ever able to 
jump outside his own soul. Therefore the argument 
is a little stronger on the side of the spirit. Secondly, 
the spirit thought explains the universe, while mate- 
rialism does not. Therefore the materialistic explan- 
ation is illogical. This is a crude form of the same 
thought. If you boil all these philosophies down and 
analyze them, you will find these two things in col- 
lision. So here, too, in a more intricate form, in a 
more philosophical form, we find the same question 
about natural purity and freedom, and natural bond- 
age. One side says that the first is a delusion, and 
the other that the second is the delusion. And here, 
too, we side with the second, that our bondage is a 
delusion. 

So the solution of the Vedanta is that we are not 
bound, we are free already. Not only so, but to say 
or to think that we are bound is dangerous; it is a 
mistake; it is self-hypnotism. As soon as you say, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 195 

"I am bound/' "I am weak," "I am helpless," woe 
unto you; you rivet one more chain upon yourself. 
Do not say that, do not think it. I have heard of a 
man who lived in a forest and used to repeat day and 
night, "S'ivoham" — I am the Blessed One — and one 
day a tiger fell upon the man and dragged him away 
to kill him, and people on the other side of the river 
saw it, and heard the voice as long as voice remained 
in him saying, ^'S'ivoham" — even in the very jaws of 
the tiger. There have been many such men. There 
have been cases of men who, while being cut to pieces, 
have blessed their enemies. "I am He, I am He ; and 
so art thou." I am pure and perfect, and so are all 
my enemies. You are He, and so am I. That is the 
position of strength. Nevertheless, there are great 
and wonderful things in the religions of the dualists; 
wonderful is the idea of the personal God apart from 
this nature, whom we are to worship and whom we 
are to love. Sometimes it is very soothing. But, says 
the Vedanta, that soothing is something like morphia, 
the soothing that comes from an opiate, not natural. 
It brings weakness in the long run, and what this 
world wants to-day more than it ever did is strength- 
ening. It is weakness, says the Vedanta, which is the 
cause of all misery in this world. Weakness is the 
one cause of suffering. We become miserable because 
we are weak. We lie, steal, kill, or commit any crime, 
because we are weak. We suffer because we are weak. 
We die because we are weak. Where there is nothing 
to weaken us, there is no death or sorrow. We are 
miserable through delusion. Give up the delusion and 
the whole thing vanishes. It is plain and simple 



196 JNANA YOGA 

indeed. Through all these philosophical discussions 
and tremendous mental gymnastics we come back to 
this one religious idea, the simplest in the whole world. 
The Monistic Vedanta is the simplest form in which 
you can put a truth. To teach dualism was the tre- 
mendous mistake made in India, made everywhere else, 
because people did not look at the principles they 
arrived at, but only thought of the process, which is 
very intricate indeed. These tremendous philosoph- 
ical and logical propositions were alarming to them. 
They thought these things could not be made universal, 
could not be made teachings of everyday practical life, 
and that under the guise of such a philosophy much 
laxity of living would arise. 

But I do not believe at all that Monistic ideas 
preached to the world would produce immorality and 
weakness. On the contrary, I have reason to believe 
that it is the only remedy there is. If this be the 
truth, why let people drink ditchwater when the stream 
of life is flowing by? If this be the truth, that they 
are all pure, why not at this moment teach it to the 
whole world? Saints and sinners, men, women and 
children, great or small, why not teach it with the 
voice of thunder, teach it to every man that is born 
or ever will come into the world, to the man on the 
throne and to the man sweeping the streets, rich or 
poor ? 

It appears now a very big and a very great under- 
taking, to many it appears very startling, but that is 
because of superstition, nothing else. By eating all 
sorts of low and indigestible food, and by starving 
ourselves, we have made ourselves incompetent to eat 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL I97 

a good meal. We have listened to words of weakness 
from our childhood. It is just the same with ghosts. 
You always hear people say they do not believe in 
ghosts, but, at the same time, there are very few who 
do not get a little creepy sensation in the dark. It is 
simply superstition. So with all these things. This 
is the one idea that will come out of Vedanta, and the 
one idea that deserves to live. These books may perish 
to-morrow. Whether this idea first flashed into the 
brains of Hebrews or of people living at the North 
Pole nobody cares. But this is truth and truth is 
eternal, and truth itself teaches that it is not the 
special property of any being. Men and animals and 
gods are all common recipients of this one truth. 
Teach it to them. Why make life miserable? Why 
let people fall into all sorts of superstition? I will 
give ten thousand lives if twenty of them will give up 
their superstitions. Not only in this country, but in 
the land of its very birth, if you tell people this they 
are frightened. They say that this idea is for San- 
nyasins, who give up the world and live in forests; 
for them it is all right. But for us poor householders, 
we must all have some sort of fear, we must have 
ceremonies, and so on. 

Dualistic ideas have ruled the world long enough, and 
this is the result. W^hy not make a new experiment? 
It may take millions of years perhaps for all minds to 
receive it, but why not begin now? If we have told 
it to twenty persons in our lives we have done a great 
work. There is generally one idea in India which 
militates against it. It is this. It is all very well to 
say, "I am the Pure, the Blessed," but I cannot show 



igS J NANA YOGA 

it always in my life. That is true ; the ideal is always 
hard. Every child that is born sees the sky over head 
very far away, but is that any reason why we should 
not strike towards the sky? Would it mend matters 
to go towards superstition? If we cannot get nectar, 
will it mend matters for us to drink poison? Would 
it be any help for us because we cannot realize truth 
immediately to go into darkness and weakness and 
superstition ? 

I have no objection to dualism in many of its forms. 
I like most of them, but I have objections to every 
form of teaching which inculcates weakness. That 
is the one question I put to every one, man, woman 
or child, when they are in training, physical, mental 
or spiritual. The question is: Are you strong? Do 
you feel strength? — for I know it is truth alone that 
gives strength. I know that truth alone gives life, 
and nothing but going towards reality will make us 
strong, and none will reach truth until he is strong. 
Every system, therefore, w^hich weakens the mind, 
weakens the brain, makes one superstitious, makes one 
mope in darkness, makes one desire all sorts of morbid 
impossibilities and mysteries and superstitions, I do 
not like, because its effect is dangerous on the human 
being. Such teachings never bring any good. 

Some may agree with me, that such things create 
morbidness in the human being, miake him weak, so 
weak that in course of time it will be almost impossible 
for him to receive truth or live up to it. Strength, 
therefore, is the one thing that we want. Strengthen- 
ing is the great medicine for the world's disease. 
Strengthening is the medicine which the poor must 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 1 99 

have when tyrannized over by the rich. Strength is 
the medicine that the ignorant must have when 
oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that 
sinners must have when tyrannized over by other sin- 
ners, and nothing gives such strength as this idea of 
Monism. Nothing makes us so moral as this idea 
of Monism. Nothing makes us work so well at our 
best and highest^ as when all the responsibility is 
thrown upon us. I challenge every one of you. How 
will you behave if I put a little baby in your hands? 
Your whole life will be changed for the moment; 
whatever you may be you must become selfless for the 
time being. You will give up all your criminal ideas ; 
as soon as responsibility is thrown upon you, your 
whole character will change. So, if the whole respon- 
sibility is thrown upon our own shoulders we shall be 
at our highest and best. When we have nobody to 
grope towards, no one to lay all our blame upon ; when 
we have neither the devil nor a personal God to lay 
all our evils upon, when we are alone responsible, then 
we shall rise to our highest and best. I am responsible 
for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I 
am the bringer of evil. I am the Pure and Blessed 
One. We must reject all thoughts that assert the 
contrary. "I never had death nor fear, I have no 
difference of caste or creed, I had neither father nor 
mother, nor birth nor death, nor friend nor foe, for 
I am the Existing- Knowledge-Bliss Absolute ; I am the 
Blissful One, I am the Blissful One. I am not bound 
either by virtue or vice, by happiness or misery. Pil- 
grimages and book and the Vedas, and all these cere- 
monials can never bind me. I do not eat, the body 
is not mine, nor the superstitions that come to the 



200 J NANA YOGA 

body, nor the decay that comes to the body, for I am 
Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute; I am the Bliss- 
ful One, I am the Blissful One." 

This, says the Vedanta, is the only prayer that the 
masses should have. This is the only way to reach 
the goal, to tell ourselves, and to tell everybody else 
that we are divine. And as we go on repeating, 
strength comes. He who limps at first will get 
stronger and stronger, the voice will increase in volume 
until it takes possession of our hearts and ideas, and 
will course through our veins, and permeate all our 
body. The delusion will vanish as the sunlight 
becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of 
ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when 
the whole has disappeared and the Sun alone will be 
left. This Vedantic idea of course to many seems 
very terrible, but that is, just as I have said, on 
account of superstition. There are people in this 
country who, if I tell them there is no such being as 
the devil, will think all religion has gone too. Many 
people have said to me, how can there be religion 
without a devil ? They say, how can there be a religion 
without some one to direct us? How can we live 
without being ruled by somebody? We like to be so 
treated. We have become used to it and like it. We 
are not happy until we feel we have been reprimanded 
by somebody every day. The same superstition ! But 
however terrible it may seem now, the time will come 
when we shall look back, each one of us, and smile at 
every one of those superstitions which covered the 
pure and eternal soul, and repeat with gladness, with 
truth, and with strength, "I am free, and was free, 
and alwavs will be free," 



XII 

PRACTICAL VEDANTA 

Part I 

I HAVE been asked to say something about the prac- 
tical position of the Vedanta Philosophy. As I have 
told you, theory is very good indeed, but how are we 
to carry it into practice? If it be absolutely impracti- 
cable no theory is of any value whatever, except as 
intellectual gymnastics. The Vedanta, therefore, to 
become a religion, must be intensely practical. We 
must be able to carry it out in every part of our lives. 
And not only this, the fictitious differentiation between 
religion and the life of the world must vanish, for the 
Vedanta teaches Oneness — one life throughout. The 
ideals of religion must cover the whole field of life, 
they must enter into every one of our thoughts, and 
more and more into our practice. I will enter grad- 
ually into the practical side as we go on. But this 
series of lectures is intended to be a basis, and so we 
must first apply ourselves to theories, and understand 
how they are worked out, proceeding from forest 
caves, to busy streets, and cities ; and one peculiar 
feature we find is that many of these thoughts have 
been the outcome, not of retirement into forests, but 
have emanated from thrones — from persons whom we 

201 



202 



JNANA YOGA 



expect to be the busiest in this Hfe of ours, from ruling 
monarchs. 

S'vetaketu was the son of Aruni, a sage, most proba- 
bly a recluse. He was brought up in the forest, but 
he went into the city of the Panchalas and there went 
to the court of the king, Pravdhana Taivali, and the 
king asked him: **Do you know how beings depart 
hence at death?" "No, Sir." "Do you know how 
they return hither?" No, Sir." Do you know the 
way of the fathers and the way of the gods?" "No, 
Sir." Then the king asked other questions. S'vetaketu 
could not answer them. Then the king told him that 
he knew nothing. The boy went back to his father 
and the father admitted that he could not answer these 
questions. It was not that he had not taught the 
boy, but he did not know these things himself. So 
S'vetaketu returned to the king with his father and 
they both asked to be taught this secret. The king 
said this secret, this philosophy, was only known 
among kings hitherto ; the priests never knew it. He, 
however, proceeded to teach them what he knew about 
these things. Thus we find in various Upanishads the 
same idea, that this Vedanta philosophy is not the out- 
come of meditation in the forests only, but that the 
very best parts of it were thought out and expressed 
by brains which were busiest in the affairs of this life 
of ours. We cannot conceive any man busier than an 
absolute monarch, one man who is ruling absolutely 
over millions of people, and yet some of these rulers 
were deep thinkers. 

Everything goes to show that this philosophy must 
be very practical, and later on, when we come to the 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 203 

Bhagavad Gita — most of you, perhaps, have read it; 
it is the best commentary we have on the Vedanta 
philosophy — curiously enough the scene is laid on the 
battle field, where Krishna teaches this philosophy to 
Arjuna, and the doctrine which stands out luminously 
in every page of the Gita is intense activity, but in the 
midst of that, eternal calmness. And this idea is 
called the "Secret of Work,'* to attain which is the 
goal of the Vedanta. Inactivity as we understand it, 
in the sense of passivity, certainly cannot be the goal. 
Were it so then the w^alls around us would be the 
most intelligent; they are inactive. Clods of earth, 
stumps of trees, would be the greatest sages in the 
world ; they are inactive. Nor does inactivity become 
activity when it is combined with passion. Real activi- 
ty, which is the goal of Vedanta, is that which is com- 
bined with eternal calmness, the calmness which cannot 
be ruffled, the balance of mind which is never disturbed, 
whatever happens around it. And we all know from 
our experience in life that that is the best attitude for 
work. 

I have been asked many times how we can work if 
we do not feel the passions which we generally feel 
for work. I also thought in that way years ago, but 
as I am growing older, getting more experience, I 
find it is not true. The less passion there is, the better 
we work. The calmer we are, the better for us, and 
the more the amount of work we do. When we let 
loose our feelings we spoil so much of energy, shatter 
our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very 
little work. The energy which ought to have gone 
out as work is spent as mere feeling, which counts for 



204 J NANA YOGA 

nothing. It is only when the mind is very calm and 
collected that the whole of its energy is spent in doing 
good work. And if you read the lives of the great 
workers which the world has produced, you will find 
that they were wonderfully calm men. Nothing, as 
it were, could throw them off their balance. That is 
why the man who becomes angry never does a great 
amount of work, and the man whom nothing can make 
angry accomplishes much more. The man who gives 
way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot 
work in this life of ours; he only breaks himself to 
pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, for- 
giving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the great- 
est amount of work. 

The Vedanta preaches the ideal, and the ideal, as 
we know, is always far ahead of the real, of the practi- 
cal; as we may call it. There are two tendencies in 
this life of ours, one to harmonize the ideal with the 
life, and the other to elevate the life to the ideal. It 
is a great thing to understand this, for the former ten- 
dency is the temptation of our lives. I think that I 
can only do a certain class of work. Most of it, per- 
haps, is bad; most of it, perhaps, has a motive power 
of passion behind it, anger, or greed, or selfishness. 
Now if any man comes to preach to me a certain ideal, 
and the first step is to give up selfishness, to give up 
self -enjoyment, I think that is impractical. But when 
a man comes to bring an ideal which reconciles my 
selfishness, which reconciles all my vileness to itself, 
I am glad at once, and jump at the ideal. That is 
the ideal for me. As the word "orthodox" has been 
manipulated into various forms, so has been the word 



* PRACTICAL VEDANTA 205 

"practical." "My doxy is orthodoxy; your doxy is 
heterodoxy." So with practicality. What I think is 
practical is the only practicality in the world. If I 
am a shopkeeper I think sh(2)Opkeeping the only practi- 
cal religion in the world. If I am a thief I think the 
best means of stealing is the only practical thing ; the 
others arc not practical. You see how we all use this 
word practical for things we can do, as we are at pres- 
ent situated, and circumstanced. Therefore I will ask 
you to understand that Vedanta, though it is intensely 
practical, is always so in the sense of the ideal. It 
does not preach an impossible ideal however high it is, 
and it is high enough for an ideal. In one word, its 
ideal is that "Thou art That," you are divine. That 
is the result of all this teaching ; after all its ramifica- 
tions and intellectual gymnastics you arrive at the 
human soul as pure and omniscient ; you see that such 
superstititions as birth and death would be entire non- 
sense when spoken of the soul. The soul was never 
born and will never die, and all these ideas that we 
are going to die and are afraid to die are mere super- 
stitions. And all such ideas, as we can do or cannot 
do, are also superstition. We can do everything. The 
Vedanta preaches to men to have faith in themselves 
first. As certain religions of the world say a man who 
does not believe in a personal god outside of himself 
is an atheist, so the Vedanta says, a man who does not 
believe in himself is an atheist. Not believing in the 
glory of your own soul is what the Vedanta calls 
atheism. To many this is, no doubt, a terrible idea, 
and most of us think that this ideal can never be 
reached, but the Vedanta insists that it can be realized 



206 JNANA YOGA 

by every one. There is neither man nor woman nor 
child, nor difference of race or sex, nor anything that 
stands as a bar to the reaHzation of the ideal, because 
Vedanta shows that it is realized already, it is already 
here. 

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It 
is we who have put our hands before our eyes, and 
cry that it is dark. Know that there is no darkness 
round us. Take the hands off and there is light from 
the beginning. Darkness never existed, weakness 
never existed. We who are fools cry that we are 
weak ; we who are fools cry that we are impure. Thus 
not only Vedanta insists that the ideal is practical, but 
it has been so all the time, and this apparent Ideal, 
this Reality, is our own nature. Everything else that 
you see is false, untrue. As soon as you say "I am 
a little mortal being," you are saying something which 
is not true, you are giving the lie to yourselves, you 
are hypnotizing yourselves into something vile and 
weak and wretched. 

It recognizes no sin, it recognizes error: and the 
greatest error, says the Vedanta, is to say you are weak, 
and a sinner, and a miserable creature, and that you 
have no power, and cannot do this and that. Every 
time you think in that way you, as it were, rivet one 
more link in the chain that holds you down, you add 
but one more layer of hypnotism to your own soul. 
Therefore, whosoever thinks he is weak is wrong, who- 
soever thinks he is impure, is wrong, and is throwing 
a bad thought into the world. This we must bear in 
mind always : that in the Vedanta there is no attempt 
at reconciling the present life, the hypnotized life, this 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 207 

false life which we have assumed, with the ideal, but 
this false life must go, and the real life, which is 
always existing, must manifest itself, must shine out. 
No man becomes purer and purer: it is more or less 
of manifestation. The veil goes away, and the native 
purity of the soul begins to manifest itself. All is 
ours already, infinite purity, freedom, love and power. 
Also, the Vedanta says, not only can this be realized 
in the depths of forests, or hidden in caves, but just 
as we have seen, the first people who discovered these 
truths for us were neither living in caves nor forests, 
nor were they ordinary persons in life, but persons 
whom we have every reason to believe had the busiest 
lives to lead, persons who had to command armies, to 
sit on thrones, and look to the welfare of their sub- 
jects — and in those days of absolute monarchs, not in 
these days when a king is to a great extent a mere 
figure head. Yet they could find time to think out all 
these thoughts, to realize them, and to teach them to 
humanity. How much more then should it be practi- 
cal for us whose lives, compared with theirs, are lives 
of leisure? That we cannot realize them is a shame 
to us, seeing that we are comparatively free all the 
time, have very little to do. My wants are as nothing 
to tlie wants of one of those ancient absolute monarchs. 
My wants are as nothing to the wants of Arjuna on 
the battle-field at Kurukshetra, commanding a huge 
army, and yet finding time in the midst of the din of 
battle to talk of the highest philosophy, and to carry 
it into his life also : and we ought to be able to do as 
much in this life of ours, comparatively free, mostly of 
ease and comfort. Most of us here have more time 



2o8 J NANA YOGA 

than we think of, or know of, if we really want to 
use it for good. We can attain two hundred ideals in 
this life of ours, if we want them, with the amount of 
freedom we have, but we must not degrade the ideal 
to the actual. This is one of the most insinuating 
things that comes to us in the shape of persons who 
apologize for us here, and teach us how to make special 
excuses for all our foolish wants, foolish desires, and 
we think that this is the only ideal we can have, but it 
is not so. The Vedanta teaches no such thing. The 
actual is to be reconciled to the ideal, the present life 
is to be made to coincide with the eternal life. 

For you must always remember that the one central 
ideal of Vedanta is this Oneness. There are not two 
in anything, no two lives, or two kinds of life for two 
worlds _even. ^ You will find the Vedas speaking of 
heavens and all these things at first, but later on, when 
they come to the highest ideals of their philosophy, they 
brush off all these things. There is but One Life, and 
One World, and One Existence. Everything is that 
Oneness, and the difference is in degree and not of 
kind. The difference between our lives is not of kind. 
The Vedanta. entirely denies such ideals as that the 
animals are separate from men, and that they were 
made and created by God to be used for our food. 

Some people have been kind enough to start an anti- 
vivisection society. I asked a member, "Why, my 
friend, do you think it is quite lawful to kill animals 
for food, and not to kill one or two for scientific 
experiments?" He replied, "That vivisection is most 
horrible, but animals have been given to us for food." 
The Oneness includes all animals. If man's life is 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 209 

immortal so is the animal's. The difference is only in 
degree and not in kind. The amoeba is the same as I 
am; the difference is only in degree, and from the 
standpoint of the highest life all these little differences 
vanish. A man may see a great deal of difference 
between grass and ^ little tree, but if you climb a very 
high mountain, grass and the biggest tree will appear 
much the same. So, from the standpoint of the high- 
est, all these ideals are the same, and if you believe 
there is a God, the animals and the highest creatures 
must be the same. A God who is partial to his chil- 
dren called men, and so cruel to his children called 
brute-beasts, is worse than a demon. I would rather 
die a hundred times than worship such a God. My 
whole life would be a fight with such a God. But it 
is not so. Those who say so do not know, they are 
irresponsible, heartless people, who do not know. 'Here 
is again a case of the practical used in the wrong sense. 
We want to eat. I myself may not be a very strict 
vegetarian, but I understand the ideal. When I eat 
meat I know it is wrong. Even if I were bound ta 
eat it under certain circumstances I know it is cruel. 
I must not drag the ideal down to the actual and try 
to apologize for my weak conduct in this way. The 
ideal is not eating flesh, not injuring any being, for the 
animal is my brother; so is the cat and the dog. If 
you can think of them as that, you have arrived a little 
towards the brotherhood of all souls, not to speak of 
the brotherhood of man! That is child's play. You 
generally find that this is not very acceptable to many, 
because it teaches to give up the actual, and go up 
higher to the ideal ; but if you bring out a theory which 



210 JNANA YOGA 

reconciles their present conduct they regard that as 
entirely practical. 

There is this strongly conservative tendency in 
human nature : we do not like to move one step for- 
ward. I think of mankind just as I read of persons 
who have become frozen in snow; all such, they say, 
want to go to sleep, and if you try to drag them up 
they say, *'Let me sleep. It is so beautiful to sleep in 
the snow," and they die there in that sleep. So is our 
nature. That is what we are doing all our life, getting 
frozen from the feet upwards, and yet wanting tc 
sleep. Therefore you must struggle towards the ideal, 
and if there comes any one to bring the ideal down to 
your level, if a man comes to teach you a religion that 
is not the highest ideal, do not listen to him. That is 
impracticable religion for me. But if a man comes 
and says religion is the highest work in life, I am 
ready for him. This is one thing to be guarded 
against, one thing to be taken care of. Beware when 
any one is trying to apologize for sense vanities and 
sense weaknesses. If any one wants to preach that 
way, sense-bound clods of earth as we have made our- 
selves, if we follow in that teaching, we shall never 
progress. I have seen a number of these things, I 
have had some experience of the world, and my coun- 
try is the land where religious sects grow like mush- 
rooms. Every year new sects arise. But one thing I 
have marked, that it is only those that never want to 
reconcile the man of flesh with the man of truth that 
make progress. Wherever there is this false idea of 
reconciling fleshly vanities with the highest ideals^ of 
dragging down God to the level of man, there comes 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 211 

decay. Man should not be degraded to man where 
he is ; he should be raised up to (^od. 

At the same time, there is another side to the ques- 
tion. We must not look down with contempt on 
others. All of us are going towards the same goal. 
The difference between weakness and strength is one 
of degree ; the difference between light and darkness is 
one of degree; the difference between virtue and vice 
is one of degree; the difference between heaven and 
hell is one of degree; the difference between life and 
death is one of degree; all difference in this world is 
one of degree, and not of kind, because Oneness is the 
secret of everything. It is all One, either as thought, 
or as life, or as soul, or as body, and the difference 
is only of degree. As such we have no right to 
look down with contempt upon those who are not 
exactly in the same degree that we are. Condemn 
none; if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. 
If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers 
and let them go their own way. Dragging down and 
condemning is not the way to work. Never is work 
accomplished in that way. We spend our energies in 
condemning others. Criticism and condemnation is a 
vain way of spending our energies, for in the long run 
we come to learn that all are seeing the same thing, 
are more or less approaching the same ideal, and that 
most of our differences are merely differences of lan- 
guage. 

Take even the idea of sin, what I was telling you 
just now, the Vedanta idea and the other idea, that 
man is a sinner; they are practically the same, only 
the one is a mistaken direction. One takes the nega- 



212 J NANA YOGA 

tive side and the Vedanta the positive. One shows to 
man his weakness, the other says weakness there may 
be, but never mind, we want to grow. Disease was 
found out as soon as man was born. Every one knows 
his disease ; it requires no one to tell us what our dis- 
eases are. We may forget anything outside, we may 
try to become hypocrites to the external world, but in 
the heart of our hearts we all know our weakness. 
But, says the Vedanta, being reminded of weakness 
will not help much; give medicine, medicine is not 
making man think that he is diseased all the time. 
The remedy for weakness is not by making men think 
of their weakness all the time, but letting them think 
of their strength. Teach them of the strength that is 
already within them. Instead of telling men they are 
sinners, the Vedanta takes the opposite stand, and 
says, **You are pure and perfect, and all you call sin 
does not belong to you." Sins are very low degrees 
of manifestation ; manifest yourself in a higher degree 
if you can. That is one thing to remember ; all of us 
can. Never say no; never say, "I cannot." It must 
not be, for you are infinite. Time and space even are 
nothing compared to your nature. You can do any- 
thing and everything, you are almighty. 

These of course are the principles of ethics. We 
shall have to come down still lower and work into the 
details. We shall have to see how this Vedanta can 
be carried into this everyday life of ours, the city life, 
the country life, life in every nation, the home life of 
every nation. For, if a religion cannot help man 
wherever he may be, wherever he stands, it is not 
much use; it will remain only a theory for a chosen 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 213 

few. Religion, to help mankind, must be ready and 
able to help him wherever he is; in servitude or in 
the full freedom of life, in the depths of degradation 
or in the heights of purity, everywhere equally it 
should be able to help mankind, and then alone the 
principles of Vedanta, or the ideal of Religion, or how- 
ever you may call it, will be fulfilled. 

The one ideal of faith in ourselves is the greatest 
help that can come to mankind. Had faith in our- 
selves been more extensively taught and practiced I 
am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries 
that we have would have vanished. Throughout the 
history of mankind, if any motive power in the lives of 
all great men and women from their very birth has 
been more potent than another it is that of faith in 
themselves; born in the consciousness that they were 
to be great, they became great. Let a man go down 
as low as he likes, but there must come a time when 
out of sheer desperation an upward curve will be taken 
and he will learn to have faith in himself. But for 
us it is better that we know it from the very first. 
Why should we be compelled to have all this bitter 
experience in order to have faith in ourselves? We 
can see that all the difference between man and man 
is owing to the existence or non-existence of faith in 
himslf. Faith in ourselves will do everything. I have 
experienced it in my own life, and am doing so con- 
tinually, and as I grow older that faith becomes 
stronger and stronger. He is an atheist who does not 
believe in himself. The old religions said he was the 
atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion 
says he is the atheist who does ngt believe in himself. 



214 J NANA YOGA 

But it is not selfish faith, because the Vedanta, again, 
is the doctrine of oneness. It means faith in all, 
because you are pure. Love for yourselves means love 
for all, for you are one ; faith in animals, faith in every- 
thing. This is the great faith which v^ill make the 
world better. I am sure of that. He is the highest 
man who dares to say "1 know all about myself." Do 
you know how many powers, how many forces, how 
many energies are stiil lurking behind that frame of 
yours? What scientist has yet known all that is in 
man? Millions of years have passed since man was 
here, and yet but one infinitesimal part of his power 
has been manifested. Therefore, how dare you say 
you are weak ? How do you know what is behind that 
degradation on the surface ? How do you know every- 
thing that is within you? Behind you is the ocean of 
infinite power and blessedness. 

'This Atman is first to be listened to, to be heard." 
Hear day and night that you are that Soul. Repeat 
it to yourselves day and night till it enters into your 
very veins, till it tingles in every drop of blood, till it is 
in your flesh and bone. Let the whole body be full of 
that one ideal, "I am the birthless, the deathless, the 
blissful, the omniscient, the omnipotent, ever-glorious 
Soul." Think on it day and night; think on it till 
it becomes part and parcel of your life. Meditate upon 
it, and out of that will come work. Out of the fulness 
of the heart the mouth speaketh, and out of the fulness 
of the heart the hand worketh also. Practice will 
come. Fill yourselves with the ideal; whatever you 
do, think well on it. All your actions will be trans- 
formed, deified, magnified, raised, by the very power 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 215 

of the thought. If matter is powerful, thought is 
omnipotent. Bring that thought, fill yourselves with 
the thought of your almightiness, your majesty, and 
your glory. Would to God all the other superstitious 
things had not been put into your head! Would to 
God we had not been born surrounded by all these 
superstitious influences and paralyzing ideas of our 
weakness and vileness ! Would to God that mankind 
had an easier path through which to attain to the 
noblest and highest truths! But man has to pass 
through all this; do not make the path more difficult 
for those who are coming after you. 

These are sometimes terrible doctrines to teach. I 
know people who get frightened, but for those who 
want to be practical this is the first practice. Tell not 
yourselves or others that you are weak. Do good if 
you can, but do not injure the world. You know in 
your inmost heart that many of your limited ideas, 
this humbling yourself, and weeping to imaginary 
beings, are superstitions. Tell me one case where 
these prayers have been answered. All the answers 
that came were from our own hearts. You all know 
there are no ghosts, but no sooner are you in the dark 
than there is a little creepy sensation. It is so because 
in our childhood we have all these fearful ideas put 
into our heads. But here is the practice. Do not do 
the same to others, through fear of society, through 
fear of public opinion, through fear of the hatred of 
our friends, for fear of loss of superstition. Be mas- 
ters of it all. What is there more to be taught in 
religion ? Oneness in this Universe, and to have faith 
in yourselves. 



2l6 JNANA YOGA 

That is all there is to teach. All the works of man- 
kind for thousands of years have been for this one 
goal, and mankind is working it out yet. It is yours 
now. We know it. It has been taught from all sides. 
Not only philosophy and psychology, but materialistic 
sciences have every day declared it. Where is the sci- 
entific man to-day who fears to acknowledge the truth 
of this oneness of the universe? Who is there who 
dares talk of many worlds, and so on ? All these were 
superstitions. There is only one life and one world, 
and this one life and one world is appearing to us as 
manifold, just as when you dream, one dream passes 
away and another comes. You do not live in your 
dreams. The dreams come one after the other, scene 
after scene unfolds before you. So it is in this world 
of ours, of ninety per cent, misery and ten per cent, 
happiness. Perhaps after a while it will appear as 
ninety per cent, happiness, and we shall call it heaven ; 
but a time will come to the sage when the whole thing 
will vanish, and this very world will appear as God 
Himself, and our own soul as God. It is not there- 
fore that there are many worlds, it is not that there are 
many lives. All this manifoldness is the manifesta- 
tion of that One. That One is manifesting Himself 
as many, either in matter, or in spirit, or in mind, or in 
thought ; or in any other thing. It is that One, mani- 
festing Himself as many. Therefore the first practice 
for us is to teach the truth to ourselves and to others. 

Let the world resound with this ideal and let super- 
stitions vanish. Tell it to men who are weak; persist 
in telling it to them. You are the pure one ; arise and 
awake, oh mighty one, this sleep does not represent 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 2\J 

you. Arise and go ; it does not befit you. Think not 
that you are weak and miserable. Almighty, arise and 
awake, and manifest your own nature. It is not 
fitting that you think yourself a sinner. It is not 
fitting that you think yourself weak. Say that to the 
world, say it to yourselves, and see what a practical 
result will come, see how with an electric flash every- 
thing will be manifested, how everything will be 
changed. Tell that to mankind and show them their 
power. Then we shall learn how to practise it In our 
daily lives. 

What we call viveka (discrimination), we shall come 
to later on, we shall learn how in every moment of our 
lives, in every one of our actions, to discriminate 
between what is right and wrong, true or false, and( 
we shall have, therefore, to know the test of truth,; 
which is purity, oneness. Everything that makes for 
oneness is truth. Love is truth, and hatred is false, 
because hatred makes for multiplicity. It is hatred 
that separates man from man; it is wrong and false 
therefore. It is a disintegrating power; it separates 
and destroys. 

Love binds, love makes for that oneness. You are 
become one, the mother with the child, families become 
one with the city. The whole world becomes one with 
the animals. For love is existence, God Himself, and 
all this is the manifestation of that one love, more or 
less expressed. The difference is only in degree, but 
it is the manifestation of that one love throughout. 
Therefore in all our actions we have to judge whether 
it is making for diversity or for oneness. If for 
diversity we have to give it up, but if it makes for one- 



2l8 JNANA YOGA 

ness we are sure it is a good action. So with our 
thoughts we have to understand whether they make 
for disintegration, the many, or for oneness, for binding 
soul unto soul, and bringing one influence tp bear. If 
they do this we will take them up, and if not we will 
throw them off as criminal. 

The whole idea of ethics is that it does not depend 
on anything unknowable, it does not teach anything 
unknown, but in the language of the Upanishad, "The 
God whom we worship as an unknown God, the same 
I preach unto thee." It is through that Self that you 
know anything else. I know the chair, but to know 
the chair I have first to know myself and then the 
chair. It is in and through the Self that the chair is 
known. It is in and through the Self that you are 
known to me, that the whole world is known to me, 
and therefore to say this Self is unknown is sheer 
nonsense. Take off the Self and the whole universe; 
vanishes. In and through Self all knowledge comes. 
Therefore it is the most known of all. It is yourself, 
that which you call 'T." You may wonder how this 
"I'* of me can be the "1" of you. You may wonder 
how this limited "I" can be that unlimited Infinite, 
and yet it is so. The limited is a mere fiction. It has 
been covered up, and a little of it is manifesting as the 
"I," but as yet it is only a part of the Infinite. The 
limitation never comes upon the unlimited ; the limited 
is a fiction. The Self is known, therefore, to every one 
of us, man, woman or child, even to the animals. I 
Without knowing Him we can neither live nor move, 
nor have our being. Without knowing this Lord of all 
we cannot breathe a second, or live a second, for He 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 2ig 

must be there to make us move, and think, and live. 
The most known of all, the God of the Vedanta, is 
not the outcome of imagination. 

If this is not preaching a practical God, how would 
you teach a practical God? A God omnipresent, in 
every being, more real than these senses of ours. 
Where is there a more practical God than Him I see 
before me? For you are He, the Omnipresent God 
Almighty, the Soul of your souls, and if I say you 
are not I tell an untruth. I know it, whether at all 
times I realize it or not. He is the oneness, the unity 
of all, the reality of all life and all existence. 

These ideas of the ethics of Vedanta have to be 
worked out in great detail, and therefore you must 
have a little patience. As I have told you, we want 
to take the subject in detail and work through it 
thoroughly, to see how the ideas grow from very low 
ideals, how the one great ideal of oneness has started 
out from all the surrounding ideas, and become shaped 
into that universal love, and we ought to study all 
these, in order to avoid dangers. But the world cannot 
wait for time to work up from the lowest steps. What 
is the use of our standing on higher steps if we cannot 
give the same truth to others coming afterwards. 
Therefore it is better to study it in all its workings; 
and first, it is absolutely necessary to clear the intellec- 
tual portion, although we know that intellectuality is 
almost nothing, it is the heart that is of most impor- 
tance. It is through the heart that the Lord is seen 
not through the intellect. The intellect is only the 
street cleaner, cleansing the path for us, a secondary 
worker, the watchman, the policeman ; but the police- 
man is not a positive necessity for the workings of 



220 J NANA YOGA 

society. He is only to stop disturbances, to check 
wrong-doing, and that is all the work required of the 
intellect. When you read intellectual books, you 
think when you have mastered them : * "Bless the Lord 
that I am out of them once more," because the intellect 
is blind and has no motion of itself, it has neither 
hands nor feet. It is feeling that is the worker, that 
moves with speed infinitely superior to that of elec- 
tricity or any thing else. Do you feel, is the question. 
If you do, through that you will see the Lord. It is 
this feeling that you have to-day that will be intensi- 
fied, deified, raised to the highest platform, till it feels 
"everything, the oneness in everything, till it feels God 
in itself and in others. The intellect can never do 
that. "Different methods of speaking words, different 
methods of explaining the texts of books, these are 
for the enjoyment of the learned, not for the salvation 
of the soul." 

Those of you who have read Thomas a Kempis will 
have found how in every page he insists on this : and 
almost every holy man in the world has insisted on it. 
Intellect is necessary, without it we fall into crude 
error, make all sorts of crude mistakes. Intellect 
checks this, but beyond that, do not try to build any- 
thing upon it. It is an inactive, secondary help; the 
real help is feeling, love. Do you feel for others ? If 
you do you are growing in oneness. If you do not feel 
for others you may be the most intellectual giant ever 
born, but you will be nothing ; you are but dry intellect, 
, and you will remain so. And if you feel, even if you 
cannot read any book, and do not know any language, 
you are in the right way. The Lord is yours. 

Do you not know in the history of the world the 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 221 

power the prophets had, and where was it? In the 
intellect ? Did any of them write a fine book on phil- 
osophy, on the most intricate ratiocinations of logic? 
Not one. They spoke only a handful of words. Feel 
like Christ and you will be a Christ ; feel like Buddha 
and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the 
life, the strength, the vitality without which no amount 
of intellectual activity can reach God. Intellect is like 
limbs without power of locomotion. It is only when 
feeling enters and gives them motion that they move 
and strike others. That has been the way all over the 
world, and you must remember it. This is one of the 
most practical things in Vedantic morality, for it is 
the teaching of the Vedanta that you are all prophets, 
and all must be prophets. The book is not the proof 
of your conduct, but you are the proof of the book. 
How do you know that a book preaches truth? 
Because you do it and feel it. That is what Vedanta 
says. What is the proofs of the Christs and Buddhas 
of the world ? That you or I feel like them. That is 
how I and you understand that they were true. Our 
prophet soul Is the proof of their prophet soul. Your 
godhead is the proof of God Himself. If you are not 
a prophet there never has been anything true of God. 
If you are not God there never was any God, and never 
will be. This, says the Vedanta, is the ideal to follow. 
Every one of us has to become a prophet, and you are 
that already. Only, know it. Never think there is 
anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest 
heresy to say that. If there be sin this is the only sin, 
to say that you are weak, or that others are weak. 



XIII 

PRACTICAL VEDANTA 

Part II 

I WILL read to you a very ancient story from the 
Chandogya Upanishad, how knowledge came to a 
boy. The form of the story is very crude, but we 
shall find that it contains a principle. A young boy 
said to his mother, "I am going to study the Vedas. 
Tell me the name of my father, and my caste." The 
mother was not a married woman, and in India 
the child of a woman who has not been married is con- 
sidered an outcast; he is not fit for anything, he is 
unable to be recognized, much less is he competent to 
study the Vedas. So the poor mother said : "My child, 
I do not know the name of your family. I was in 
service ; I had to serve in many places ; I do not know 
who your father is, but my name is Jabala." The child 
went to the college of sages, and there he was asked 
the same question. He asked to be taken as a student, 
and they in turn asked him: "Say child, what is the 
name of your father, and what is your caste?" The 
boy repeated what he had heard from his mother. 
"Sir, I asked my mother the question, and this was 
her answer." Most of the sages were disappointed at 
the answer, and did not know what to say, but one of 

222 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 223 

them stood up and asked the boy to come to him, and 
said : "My boy you have not swerved from the truth ; 
you have not swerved from the path of righteousness, 
and this is what is called a Brahmin, so you are a 
Brahmin, and I will teach you." So he kept the boy 
with him and educated him; and because he had told 
the truth, gave him a new name — Satyakama — ^the 
"truth desiring." 

Now come some of the peculiar methods of ancient 
education. This teacher gave Satyakama four hun- 
dred lean, weak cows to take care of, and sent him to 
the forest. There he went and lived for some time. 
The teacher had told him to come back when there 
were one thousand in the herd. So after a few years, 
Satyakama heard a big bull in the herd telling him 
"We are a thousand now ; take us back to your teacher. 
I will teach you a little of Brahman." "Say on, sir," 
said Satyakama. Then the bull said, "The east is a 
part of the Lord, so is the west, so is the south, so is 
the north. The four cardinal points are four parts 
of Brahman. You will be taught by the fire." Fire 
was the great symbol in those days, and every student 
had to procure fire and make offerings. So Satyakama 
came back, and after performing his oblation, and 
worshipping at the fire, he was sitting near it, when 
from the fire came a voice, "O Satyakama." "Speak 
Lord," said Satyakama. Perhaps you may remember 
a very similar story in the Old Testament, how Samuel 
heard a mysterious voice. "O Satyakama, I am come 
to teach you a little of Brahman. This earth is a por- 
tion of that Brahman. The sky and the heaven are a 
portion of Him. The ocean is a part of that Brahman." 



224 J NANA YOGA 

Then the fire said that a certain bird would teach him 
something. Satyakama continued on his journey, and 
when he had performed his evening sacrifice, there 
came a swan who said, "I will teach you something 
about Brahman. This fire which you worship, O 
Satyakama, is a part of that Brahman. The sun is a 
part, the moon is a part, the lightning is a part of that 
Brahman. A bird called Madgu will tell you another 
part." The next evening that bird came, and a similar 
voice was heard by Satyakama, "I will tell you some- 
thing about Brahman. Breath is a part of Brahman, 
sight is a part, hearing is a part, the mind is a part." 
Then the boy returned to his teacher, and the teacher 
saw him from a distance, and this is what he said, 
"Boy, thy face shines like a knower of Brahman." 
Then the boy asked the teacher to teach him more, and 
he said: "You have known some part of the truth 
already." 

Now, apart from these allegories, what the bull 
taught, what fire taught, and what these others taught, 
we see the tendency of the thought and the direction 
in which it is going. The great idea of which we 
here see the germs, is, that all these voices are inside 
ourselves. As we read on we shall find how it is at 
last made clear that the voice is here in the heart, and 
the student understands that all this time he was 
hearing the truth, but his explanation was not cor- 
rect. He was interpreting the voice as from the; 
external world, while all the time the voice was inside 
him. The second idea that comes, is that of making 
the knowledge of the Brahman practical. It is always 
seeking the practical possibilities of religion, and we 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 22$ 

find in reading these stories how it is becoming more 
and more practical every day. The idea is shown 
through everything with which the students were 
famihar. The fire with which they were worshipping 
was that Brahman. This earth is a part of Brahman, 
and so on. 

The next story belongs to a disciple of this Satya- 
kama, who went to be taught by him and dwelt near 
him for some time. Now Satyakama went away 
somewhere, and the student became very down-hearted, 
so that when the teacher's wife came and asked the 
boy why he was not eating, the boy said: 'T am too 
unhappy to eat," and then a voice from the fire he 
was worshipping, saying: ''This life is Brahman. 
Brahman is the ether, and Brahman is space. Know 
Brahman.'' "I know, sir, that life is Brahman, but 
that He is space and that He is ether I do not know." 
What is meant by ether is infinite space. Then the 
fire taught him the duties of the householder. "This 
earth, this food, this fire and this sun, whom you wor- 
ship, are forms of Brahman. He who inhabits these 
is within you all. He who knows this and meditates 
on Him, all his sins vanish and he has long life and 
becomes happy. He who lives in the cardinal points, 
I am He. He who lives in the breath, and in the 
ether, in the heavens, and in the lightning, I am He." 
Here too we see the same idea of practical religion. 
That which they were worshipping as the fire, the sun, 
the moon, and so forth, the voice with which they are 
familiar, takes up the subject, and explains it, and 
gives it a higher meaning, and that is the real practi- 
cal side of Vedanta. It does not destroy the world, 



226 J NANA YOGA 

but it explains it; it does not destroy the person, but 
explains it; it does not destroy the individuality, but 
explains it, by showing the real individuality. It 
does not show that this world is vain, and does not 
exist, but it says understand what this world is, so 
that it may not hurt you. The voice did not say to 
Satyakama that the fire which he was worshipping 
was all wrong, or the sun, or the moon, or the light- 
ning, or anything else, but it showed him that the same 
spirit which is inside the sun, the moon, the lightning, 
the lire, and the earth, is in him, so that everything 
became transformed, as it were, to the eyes of Satya- 
kama. The fire which was merely a material fire 
before in which to make oblations, assumes a new 
aspect, and becomes the Lord really. The earth has 
become transformed, life has become transformed, the 
sun, the moon, the stars, the lightning, everything 
becomes transformed, deified. Their real nature is 
known. For we must know that the theme of the 
Vedanta is to see the Lord in everything, to see things 
in their real nature, not as they appear to be. 

Then another lesson is taught which is very peculiar. 
**He who shines through the eyes is Brahman. He is 
the beautiful one, He is the shining one. He shines 
in all these worlds." A certain peculiar light, the 
commentator says, which comes to the pure man is 
the light in the eyes meant here, and it is said that 
when a man is pure, such a light will shine in his 
eyes, and that light belongs really to the soul within 
which is everywhere. It is the same light which is 
shining in the planets, in the stars, and suns. 

The other thing that I will read to you is about 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 227 

some peculiar doctrines of these ancient Upanishads, 
about birth and death and so on. Perhaps it will 
interest you. Svetaketu went to the king of the 
Panchdlas, and there the king asked him, "Do you 
know where people go when they die? Do you know 
whether they come back or not? Do you know why 
this earth does not become full, and why it does not 
become empty?" The boy replied that he did not 
know Then he went to his father and asked him the 
same questions. The father said, "I do not know," 
and they both returned to the king. The king said 
this knowledge was never among the priests, it was 
only among the kings, and that is why the king rules 
the world. But this man served the king for some 
time, and at last the king said he would teach him. 
*'0 Gautama, the fire that you worship outside is a 
very low state of things. This earth itself is that 
great symbol of fire. The air is its fuel. The night 
is its smoke. Its flame is the cardinal points. The 
lower part is inhabited by darkness. In this fire the 
gods pour the oblation, the rain out of which comes 
food. You need not make oblation to that little fire; 
the whole world is that fire, and this oblation, this 
worship, is continually going on. The gods, and the 
angels, everybody is worshipping. Man, O Gautama, 
is the greatest symbol of fire, the body of man. We get 
the idea becoming practical once more, the Brahman 
coming down. And the one idea that runs through all 
these symbolical stories is that invented symbolism 
may be good, and helpful, but better symbols exist 
already than any you can invent. If you want to 
invent an image to worship God, a better image still 



228 J NANA YOGA 

exists, the living man. If you want to build a temple 
to worship God, that may be good, but a better one, a 
much higher one, exists, the human body. 

We must remember that the Vedas have two parts, 
the ceremonial and the knowledge portions. By that 
time ceremonials had become so intricate and multi- 
plied that it was almost hopeless to disentangle them 
and in the Upanishads the ceremonials are almost 
done away with, but gently, by explaining them. We 
see that in old times they had these oblations and 
sacrifices, but here the philosophers come, and they, 
instead of snatching their symbols from the hands of 
the ignorant, instead of taking the negative position 
which we, unfortunately, find general in modern 
reforms, gave them something to take their place. 
Here is the symbol of fire, very good. But here is 
another symbol, the earth. What a grand, great sym- 
bol ! Here is this little temple, but the whole universe 
is a temple; a man can worship anywhere. There 
are the peculiar figures that men draw on the earth, 
and build altars, but here is the greatest of altars, the 
living conscious human body, and worship here is far 
greater than the worship of any dead symbols. 

We now come to a peculiar doctrine. I do not 
understand much of it myself. If you can make 
something out of it I will read it to you. When a 
man who has meditated, and purified himself, and got 
knowledge, dies, then he first goes to light, from 
light to day, from day to the light half of the moon, 
from that to the six months when the sun goes to the 
north, from the months to the year, from the year to 
the sun, from the sun to the moon, from the moon to 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 229 

the lightning, and when he comes to the sphere of 
lightning he meets a person who is not a man, and 
that person helps him to meet Brahman, to meet God. 
This is the path of the gods. When sages and know- 
ing persons die they go that way and they do not 
return. What is meant by this month and year and 
all these things, no one understands clearly. Each 
one makes his own meaning, and a good many say it is 
all nonsense. What is meant by going to the world 
of the moon, and of the sun, and this person who 
comes to help the Soul after it has reached the spheres 
of light, no one knows. There has been a peculiar 
idea among the Hindus that the moon is a state of 
life, and we will see how life has come from the moon, 
it has rained from the moon upon this earth. Those 
that have not attained to knowledge, but have done 
good work in this life, when they die, first go through 
smoke, then to night, then to the dark fifteen days, 
then the six months when the sun goes to the south, 
from that they go to the region of the forefathers, 
then to ether, then to the region of the moon, and 
there they become the food of the gods, and are born 
as gods. There they live as long as their good works 
will permit. And when the efifect of the good work 
has been finished they come back. They first become 
ether, and then air, and then smoke, then mist, then 
cloud, and then get hold of raindrops, and fall upon 
the earth, get into food, are eaten up by human beings, 
and then become their children. Those whose works 
have been very good take birth in very good families, 
and those whose works have been bad take very bad 
births. The animals are always dying, and are con- 



230 J NANA YOGA 

tinually coming in this earth. That is why this earth 
is not full, and not empty. 

Several ideas we can get also from this, and later 
on, perhaps, we shall be able to understand it better, 
and we can speculate a little upon what they mean. 
The last part, how those who have been in heaven 
are returning, is clearer perhaps than the first part, 
but the whole idea seems to be this, that there is no 
permanent heaven without realizing God. Now some 
people who have not realized God, but have done good 
work in this world, with the view of enjoying the 
results thereof, when they die go through this and 
that place, until they reach heaven, and there they 
are born in the same way as we are here, as children 
of the gods, and they live there as long as their good 
works will permit. Out of this comes one basic idea 
of the Vedanta, that everything which has name and 
form is transient. This earth is transient, because it 
has name and form, and so the heavens must be tran- 
sient, because there also the name and form remain. 
A heaven which was eternal would be contradictory in 
terms, just as the earth cannot be eternal; because 
everything that has name and form must begin in 
time, exist in time, and finish in time. These are 
settled doctrines with the Vedanta, and the heavens 
are given up. 

We have seen in the Samhita how the other idea 
was that heaven was eternal, much the same as the 
idea which is prevalent in Europe among Mohamme- 
dans and Christians. The Mohammedans concretize 
it a little more. They say it is a place where there 
are gardens, beneath which rivers run. In the desert 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 23 1 

of Arabia water is something which is very desirable, 
so the Mohammedan always conceives his heaven as 
full of water. I was born in a country where there 
are six months of rain every year. I would think 
of heaven, I suppose, as a dry place, and so would the 
English people. These heavens in the Samhita por- 
tion are eternal; the departed have beautiful bodies 
and live with their forefathers, and are happy ever 
afterwards. There they meet with their fathers, and 
children, and relatives, and lead very much the same 
life as here, only much happier. All the difficulties 
and obstructions to happiness in this life will vanish, 
and all its good parts and enjoyments will be left. 
But however comfortable mankind may consider this, 
there is something which is truth and something 
which is comfort. There are cases where truth is not 
comfortable until we reach the climax. Human nature 
is very conservative. It goes on doing something, 
and once having done that something it finds it hard 
to get out of it. The mind will not allow new thoughts 
to come, because they give pain. 

So here, in the Upanishads, we see a tremendous 
departure made. It is declared that these heavens, 
where men used to go and live with the ancestors 
cannot be permanent, seeing that everything which 
has nam.e and form must die. If there arc heavens 
with forms, these heavens must vanish in course of 
time ; it may be millions of years, but there must come 
a time when they will have to go. Another idea by 
this time has appeared, that these souls must come 
back to this earth, that these heavens are places where 
they enjoy the results of their good works, and after 



232 JNANA YOGA 

these effects are finished they come back into this 
earth life again. One idea is clear from this, that 
mankind had a perception of the philosophy of causa- 
tion even at that early time. Later on we shall see 
how our philosophers bring that out in the language 
of philosophy and logic, but here it is almost in the 
language of children. One thing you may remark in 
reading these books, that it is all internal perception. 
If you ask me if this can be practical, my answer is it 
has been practical first, and philosophical next. You 
can see that these things have been perceived and 
realized first, and then written. This world spoke to 
the early thinkers, birds spoke to them, animals spoke 
to them, the sun, the moon spoke to them, and bit by 
bit they realized things and got into the heart of 
nature, not by cogitation, not by the force of logic, 
not by picking the brains of others and making a big 
book, as is the fashion in modern times, not as I do, 
by taking up one of their writings and makmg a 
lecture; but by patient investigation and discovery. 
Its essential method was practice, and so it will be 
always. Religion will be always a most practical 
science. There never was or will be any theological 
religion. It is practice first, and knowledge after- 
wards. The idea that these souls come back is already 
there. Those persons who do good work with the 
idea of a result, get it, but the result is not perma- 
nent. There we get the idea of causation very beauti- 
fully put forward, that the effect is only commen- 
surate with the cause. What the cause is, so the effect 
will be. The cause being finite, the effect must be 
finite. If the cause is eternal the effect can be eternal. 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 233 

but all these causes, doing good work, and all other 
things, are only finite causes, and as such cannot 
produce infinite result. 

We come to the other side of the question, that as 
there cannot be an eternal heaven, there cannot be an 
eternal hell, on the same grounds. Suppose I am a 
very wicked man. Suppose I do evil every minute of 
this life of mine. Still this whole life here, compared 
to my eternal life, is nothing. If there be an eternal 
punishment it will mean that there is an infinite effect 
produced by a finite cause. The infinite effect of my 
work will be produced by the finite cause of this life, 
and for this infinite result I shall have a finite cause 
which cannot be. If I do good all my life I cannot 
have an infinite heaven ; it would be making the same 
mistake. But there is the third course, for those who 
have known the truth, for those who have realized. 
That is the only way to get out, as it were, beyond 
this veil of mdya, to realize what truth is, and the 
Upanishads indicate what line these are taking, what 
is meant by realizing the truth. 

It means recognizing neither good nor bad, but 
knowing all as coming from the Self ; self is in every- 
thing. It means denying the universe; closing your 
eyes; seeing the Lord in heaven and in hell also; 
seeing the Lord in life and in death also. This is the 
line which thought is taking in the passage I have 
just read to you, how this earth itself is a symbol of 
the Lord, how the sky is said to be the Lord, how the 
place we fill is said to be the Lord. Everything is 
Brahman. And this is to be seen, realized, not simply 
talked about, or thought about. We can see as a 



234 JNANA YOGA 

logical consequence that when the soul has realized 
that everything in this universe, every place is full of 
the Lord, of Brahman; it will not mean anything to 
that soul whether it goes to heaven, or hell, or any- 
where. It does not mean anything to it whether it be 
born again on this earth, or in heaven. These have 
ceased to have any meaning, because for the soul that 
has realized its real nature, every place is the same, 
every place is the temple of the Lord, every place has 
become holy, and the presence of the Lord is all that 
it sees in heaven, or hell, or anywhere. Neither good 
nor bad, neither life nor death; only one Infinite 
Brahman exists for that soul. 

When a man has arrived at that perception accord- 
ing to the Vedanta, he has become free, and, says the 
Vedanta, that is the only man who is fit to live in this 
world. Others are not. The man who sees evil, how 
can he live in this world? His life is a misery; it 
is a mass of misery here. The man who sees dangers 
here, his life is a misery; the man who sees death, 
his life is a misery. That man alone can live in this 
world, he alone can say: *T enjoy this life, and I am 
happy in this life,'' who has seen the truth, and the 
truth in everything. By the bye, I may tell you that 
the idea of hell does not occur in the Vedas anywhere. 
It comes into India with the Purdnas, much later. 
The worst punishment described in the Vedas is coming 
back here, having another chance on this earth. From 
the very first we see the idea is taking the impersonal 
turn. The ideas of punishment and reward are very 
material, and they are only consonant with the idea of 
a human God, a being who loves one and not another. 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 235 

just as we do. Punishment and reward are only 
admissible with the existence of such a God. They 
had such a God in the Samhita, and there we find the 
idea of fear entering, but as soon as we come to the 
Upanishads the idea of fear vanishes, and the imper- 
sonal idea takes its place, and it is naturally the hardest 
thing to understand, this impersonal idea, in every 
country. Man is always clinging on to the person. 

On the other hand the Impersonal God is a Hving 
God, a Principle. The difference between personal 
and impersonal is this, that the personal is only a little 
man, and the impersonal idea is that he is the animal, 
the man, the angel, and yet something more which 
we cannot see, because impersonality involves all per- 
sonality, is the sum-total of all personality in the 
universe, and infinitely more besides. "As the one 
fire coming into the world is manifesting itself in so 
many forms, and yet is infinitely more besides." Such 
is the Impersonal. 

We want to worship a living God. I have seen 
nothing but God all my life, nor have you. To see 
this chair you first see God, and then the chair, in and 
through Him. He is there day and night, saying : "I 
am." The moment you say "I am" you are knowing 
existence. Where shall you go to find God if you 
cannot see Him in your own hearts, in living beings, 
in the man working in the street ? "Thou art the man, 
Thou art the woman. Thou art the girl, and Thou art 
the boy. Thou art the old man tottering on a stick. 
Thou art the young man walking in the pride of his 
strength." He is all that exists, a wonderful living 
God, who is the only Fact in the Universe. This 



236 J NANA YOGA 

seems to many to be a very terrible contradiction to 
the traditional God, who lives behind a veil some- 
where and whom nobody ever sees. The priests only 
give us an assurance that if we follow them, listen to 
their admonitions and walk in the way they mark out 
for us — then when we die, they will give us a pass- 
port, and we may happen to see the face of God! 
What are all these heaven ideas but simply modifica- 
tions of this nonsenical priestcraft ? 

Of course the impersonal idea is very destructive; 
it takes away all trade from the priests, all churches 
and temples will vanish. If they taught this imper- 
sonal idea to the people their occupation would be 
gone. Yet we have to teach it unselfishly, without 
priestcraft. You are God and so am I; who obeys 
whom? Who worships whom? You are the highest 
temple of God; I would rather worship you than any 
temple or any image or bible. Why are these people 
so contradictory in their thought? They are like fish 
slipping through our fingers. They say we are hard- 
headed practical men. Very good. But what is more 
practical than worshipping here, worshipping you? I 
see you, feel you, and I know you are God. The 
Mohammedan says there is no Gk)d but Allah. The 
Vedanta says there is no God but man. It may 
frighten many of you, but you will understand it by- 
and-by. The living God is within you, and yet you 
are building churches and temples and believing all 
sorts of imaginary nonsense. The only God to wor- 
ship is the human soul, or the human body. Of course 
all animals are temples, but man is the highest, the 
Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship that, no 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 237 

Other temple will be of any advantage. The moment 
I have realized God sitting in the temple of every 
human body, the moment I stand in reverence before 
every human being, and really see God, the moment 
that feeling comes to me, that moment I am free from 
bondage, everything vanishes, and I am free. 

This is practical, the most practical of all worship. 
It does not have anything to do with theorizing and 
speculation ; yet, if you tell it to most men, it frightens 
them. They say it is not right. They go on theoriz- 
ing about ideas their grandfathers told them, and their 
forefathers six thousand years ago, that a God some- 
where in heaven told somebody that he was God. 
Since that time we have only theories. This is practi- 
cality according to them, and our ideas are impractical. 
Each one must have his way, says the Vedanta, but 
this is the ideal. The worship of a god in heaven, and 
all these things, are not bad, but they are only steps 
towards the truth, and not the truth itself. They are 
good and beautiful, and some wonderful ideas are 
there, but the Vedanta says at every point : *'My friend, 
Him whom you are worshipping as unknown I worship 
as thee. Whom you are worshipping as unknown and 
trying to seek throughout the universe. He has been 
there all the time. You are living through Him. He 
is the eternal witness of the universe." **Him whom 
all the Vedas worship, nay, more, He who is always 
present in the eternal T,' He existing, the whole 
universe exists. He is the light of the universe. If 
the *r were not in you, you would not see the sun, 
everything would be a dark mass for you, non-exist- 
ence. He shining, you see the world," 



238 J NANA YOGA 

One question is generally asked and it is this, that 
this may lead to a tremendous amount of difficulty. 
Every one of us will think I am God, whatever I do 
or think is good; God can do no evil. In the first 
place, even taking this danger of misinterpretation 
for granted, can it be proved that on the other side 
the same danger does not exist ? They have been wor- 
shipping a God in heaven separate from them, and of 
whom they are so much afraid. They have come in 
shaking with fear, and all their life they go on shaking. 
Has the world been made much better? The same 
question you ask on the other side. Those who have 
understood and worshipped a personal God, and those 
who have understood and worshipped an impersonal 
God, on which side have been the great workers of 
the world ? Gigantic workers, gigantic moral powers ? 
Certainly the impersonal. How can you expect moral 
persons to be developed from fear? It can never be. 
"Where one sees another, where one hurts another, 
that is Maya. When one does not see another, when 
one does not hurt another, when everything has 
become the Atman, who sees whom, who perceives 
whom ?" It is all He, and all I, at the same time. 
The soul has become pure. Then, and then alone we 
understand what is love, and can love come through 
fear? Its basis is in freedom; then comes love. We 
really begin to love the world, then we understand 
what is meant by brotherhood and mankind, and not 
before. 

So it is not right to say this will lead to a tremen- 
dous amount of evil doing all over the world, as if the 
other doctrine never lends itself to the works of evil ; 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 239 

as if it does not deluge this world in blood, as if it does 
not tear to pieces and lead to sectarianism. My God 
is the greatest God. Let us decide it by a free fight. 
That is the outcome of dualism all through the world. 
Come out into the broad open light of day, come out 
from the little narrow paths.. How can the great 
infinite human soul rest content to live and die in small 
ruts? There is the universe of light, everything in 
the universe is ours. Try to stretch out your arms 
and embrace the whole universe in love. If you have 
ever felt that you wanted to do that, you have felt God. 
You remember that passage in the sermon of 
Buddha, how he sent a thought of love towards the 
South, and the North, and the East, and the West, 
above and below, until the whole universe was filled 
with this love, grand and great and infinite. When 
you have that feeling that means true personality. 
The whole universe is one Person; let go these little 
things. Give up the small for this infinite enjoyment, 
give up small enjoyments for this infinite bliss. What 
use is it to have these small bits of bliss? And it is 
all yours, for you must remember that the impersonal 
includes the personal. So God is the Personal and the 
Impersonal at the same time. So man, the infinite, 
impersonal Man, is manifesting himself as this person. 
We the infinite have limited ourselves, as it were, into 
little bits. The Vedanta says this is the state of things. 
It will not vanish, it will remain, but now it is our- 
selves. We are limiting ourselves by our Karma, and 
that like a chain round our necks has dragged us into 
this limitation. Break that chain and be free. Tram- 
ple law under your feet. There is no law in human 



(( 



240 JNANA YOGA 

nature, there is no destiny, no fate. How can there 
be law in infinity? Freedom is its watchword. Free- 
dom is its nature, its birthright. Be free, and then 
have any amount of Httle personaHties you Hke. Then 
we will play as the actor, as a king comes upon the 
stage and takes up the role of a beggar, and the actual 
beggar is walking through the streets. The scene is 
the same in both cases, the words are perhaps the same, 
but yet what a difference. The one enjoys his beg- 
gary and the other is suffering misery from it. And 
what makes this difference? The one is free and the 
other is bound. The king knows this beggary is not 
true, but that he has assumed it, taken it up just for 
play, and the beggar thinks that it is his familiar state 
and he has to bear it whether lie will or not. This is 
law, so he is miserable. You and I as long as we have 
no knowledge of our real nature, are these beggars, 
jostled about by every force in nature, made slaves by 
everything in nature, crying all the world over for 
help, and help never comes to us, trying to get help 
from every quarter, from imaginary fictitious beings, 
and yet never getting any help. Then thinking, this 
time it will come, and weeping and wailing and hoping, 
one life is passed and the same play goes on. 

Be free ; hope for nothing from any one else. I am 
sure if you all look back upon your lives you will find 
that you were always vainly trying to get help from 
others and it never came. All the help that has been 
given you was from within yourselves. You only had 
the fruits of what you yourselves worked for, and yet 
strangely hoping all the time for help. Like the rich 
man's parlor, always full, but if you watch it you do 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 24I 

not find the same batch of people there. Always 
hoping that they will get something out of these rich 
men, but they never do. So are our lives, hoping, 
hoping, hoping, never coming to an end. Give up this 
hope, says the Vedanta. Why should you hope ? You 
have everything. You are the king, the vSelf. What 
are you going to hope for ? If the king goes mad, and 
goes about to find the king in his own country, he will 
never find him because he is the king himself. He 
may go through every village and city in his own coun- 
try, seeking in every house, he may weep and wail, but 
will never find any king because he is the king himself. 
It is better that we know we are the king and give up 
this fool's search after the king. Thus says the Vedan- 
ta, and knowing that we are the king we become happy 
and contented. Give up all these fools' searches, and 
then play on in the universe. 

The whole vision is changed. Instead of an eternal 
prison this world has become a playground. Instead 
of a land of competition it is merely a land of Spring- 
time, where the butterflies are flitting about in mirth. 
This very world is then heaven, where in the first place 
it was hell. To the eyes of the bound it is a tremen- 
dous place of torment, and to the eyes of the free it is 
the only world that exists. Heavens and all these 
places are here. This one life is the universal life. 
All rebirths are here. All the gods are here, the pro- 
totypes of man. The gods did not create man after 
their type, but man created gods. And here are the 
prototypes, here is the Indra, the Karma, and all the 
gods of the universe sitting before him. You have 
been projecting your little doubles, and you are the 



242 JNANA YOGA 

originals, the real, the only gods to be worshipped. 
This is the view of the Vedanta, and this its practica- 
bility. Because we have become free, we shall not go 
mad and throw up society and fly off to die in the 
forest or the cave, we shall remain where we are, only 
we shall have understood the whole thing. The same 
phenomena will come, but with new meaning. We do 
not know the world yet; it is only through freedom 
that we see what it is, understand its nature. We 
shall see then that this so-called law, or fate, or des- 
tiny, occupied only an infinitesimal part of our nature. 
It was just one side, and on the other side there was 
freedom all the time, and we have been like the hunted 
hare putting our faces on the ground, and trying to 
save ourselves from evil. 

We have through delusion been trying to forget our 
nature, and yet we could not forget, it was always 
calling upon us, and all our search after god or gods, 
or external freedom, was a search after our real 
nature. We mistook the voice. We thought it was 
from the fire, or from a god, or the sun, or moon, or 
stars, but at last we have found that it was from our- 
selves. Here is this eternal voice speaking of eternal 
freedom. Its music is eternally going on. Part of 
this music of the soul has become the earth, the law, 
this universe, but it was always ours and always will 
be. In one word the ideal of Vedanta is to know man 
as he really is, and this is the message, that if you can- 
not worship your brother man, the manifested God, 
neither can you worship a God who is unmanifested. 

Do you not remember in the Christian Bible, if you 
cannot love your own brother whom you have seen. 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 243 

how can you love God whom you have not seen? If 
you cannot see God in the human face divine, how can 
you see Him in the clouds, or in anything dull, or 
dead, or in mere fictitious stories of your brain? I 
will call you religious, from the day you begin to see 
God in men and women, for then you will understand 
what is meant by turning the left cheek to the man 
who strikes you on the right. When you see man as 
God, everything, even the tiger, will be welcome. 
Everything that comes is but the Lord in various 
forms, the Eternal, the Blessed One, our father, and 
mother, and friend, our own soul playing with us. 

There is still a higher ideal than calling God Father ; 
to call Him Mother. There are other ideals ; He has 
been called "Friend" ; still higher "the Beloved." The 
highest point of all is to see no difference between 
lover and beloved. You remember the old Persian 
story, how a lover came and knocked at the door and 
was asked, "Who is that." He answered, "It is I," 
and there was no answer. A second time he came, 
and answered "I am here,** but the door did not open. 
The third time the lover came, and the voice again 
asked, "Who is that." He replied, "I am thyself, my 
love," and the door opened. So, between God and 
ourselves. He is in everything. He is everything. 
Every man and woman is the palpable blissful living 
and only God. Who says God is unknown, who says 
He is to be searched after ? We have found God eter- 
nally. We have been living in Him eternally. Every- 
where He is eternally known, eternally worshipped. 

A great mistake is often made, that other forms of 
worship than our own are all errors. That is one of 



244 J NANA YOGA 

the great points not to be forgotten, that those who 
worship God through ceremonials and forms, however 
crude we may think them, are not in error. It is 
the travel from truth to truth, from lower truth to 
higher truth. Darkness is less light ; evil is less good ; 
impurity is less purity. This must always be borne in 
mind that we have to see others with eyes of love, with 
sympathy, knowing that they are but going through 
the same path that we have trod. If you are free, 
you must know that all are coming up to be free 
sooner or later, and if you are free how do you see the 
impermanent ? If you are really pure how do you see 
the impure, for what is within is without. We cannot 
see impurity without having it first inside. This is one 
of the practical sides of Vedanta, and I hope that we 
shall all try to carry it into our lives. The whole of 
life is for this to be carried into practice; but one 
great point we gain, that we shall work with satisfac- 
tion and contentment, instead of discontent and dissat- 
isfaction, for we know Truth is within us, we have it, 
it is our birthright, and we have only to manifest it, 
make it tangible. 



XIV 

PRACTICAL VEDANTA 

Part III 

In the Chandogya Upanishad we read that a sage 
called Narada came to another called Sanatkumara, 
arid asked various questions, and among them inquired 
if religion is the cause of things as they are. And 
Sanatkumara takes him, as it were, step by step, tells 
him that there is something higher than this earth, 
and something higher than that, and so on, till he 
comes to akasa, ether. Ether is higher than light, 
because in the ether are the sun and the moon, light- 
ning, the stars ; it is in the ether we hear, in ether we 
live, and in ether we die. Then the question arises, 
is there anything higher than that, and he tells him of 
prdna. This prdna, according to the Vedanta, is the 
principle of life. It is like ether, an omnipresent prin- 
ciple, and all motion, either in the body or anywhere 
else, is the work of this prdna. Prdna is greater than 
dkdsa. Through prdna everything lives, prdna is in 
the mother, in the father, in the sister, in the teacher, 
prdna is the knower. 

I will read another passage, where Svetaketu asks 
his father about the truth, and the father teaches him 
different things, and then at last answers "That which 

345 



246 J NANA YOGA 

is the fine cause in all these things, of it are all these 
things made. That is the all, that is truth, thou art 
That, O Svetaketu.'' And then he again gives various 
examples. "As a bee, O Svetaketii, gathers honey 
from different flowers, and as the different honeys do 
not know that they are from various trees, and from 
various flowers, so all of us, having come out of that 
existence, have forgotten that we have done so. 
Therefore, O Svetaketn, That thou art." He gives 
another example of the rivers running down to the 
ocean, and they do not know that they have risen as 
various rivers, so even we come out of that Existence, 
and do not know that we are That. "O Svetaketu, 
thou art That." So on he goes. 

Now there are two principles of all knowledge. The 
one principle is that we can know by referring the 
particular to the general, and the general to the univer- 
sal ; and the second principle is, that anything of which 
the explanation is sot^ght, is to be explained so far as 
possible from its own nature. Taking up the first 
principle we see that all our knowledge really consists 
of that classification going 'higher and higher. When 
something happens singly we are, as it were, dissati- 
fied. When it can be shown that that very thing hap- 
pens again and again we are satisfied, and call it law. 
When we find that one stone falls, or one apple falls, we 
are dissatified ; when we find that all stones and all 
apples fall we call it the law of gravitation and are 
satisfied. The fact is that from the particular we 
deduce the general. When we want to study religion 
this is the scientific process. 

To study religion, therefore, to make it scientific, 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 247 

we have to admit the same light. The same principle 
also holds good, and as a fact we find that that has 
been the course all through. In reading these books 
that I have been translating to you, the earliest idea 
that I can trace is from the particular to the general. 
We see how these "bright ones'* become merged 
together and become one principle, and how in the 
ideas of the cosmos they are going higher and higher, 
how from the fine elements they are going to finer 
and finer, and more embracing elements, how from 
particulars they come to one omnipresent ether, and 
how from even that they went to an all embracing 
force, or prdna, and in all this the principle that runs 
through all, is, that one is not separate from the 
others. It is the very ether that exists in the higher 
form, or, so to say, the higher form of prdna con- 
cretes and becomes ether and that ether becomes still 
grosser, and so on. 

The generalization of the personal God is another 
case in point. We have seen how the same generaliza- 
tion was reached, and how it was called the sum total 
of all consciousness. But a difficulty arises from that ; 
it is not an all-sufficient generalization. We take up 
only one side of the facts of nature, the fact of con- 
sciousness, and out of that we generalize, and our 
generalization takes the form of the personal God, 
when the whole of nature is left aside. So, in the 
first place it is rather a defective generalization. There 
is another insufficiency, and that is the outcome of the 
second principle. Everything should be explained out 
of its own nature. There may have been people who 
thought that every stone that fell to the ground was 



248 J NANA YOGA 

dragged down by some ghost, but the explanation is 
the law of gravitation, and although we know it is not 
a perfect explanation, yet it is much better than the 
other, because one explanation is by some extraneous 
cause, and the other is by its own nature. So on, 
throughout the whole range of our knowledge, the 
explanation which is the outcome of the nature of the 
thing itself is a scientific explanation, and any explana- 
tion which is entirely outside of the thing in question 
is unscientific. 

So the explanation of a personal God as the creator 
of the universe has to stand that test. If that God is 
outside of nature, having nothing to do with nature, 
and this nature is the outcome of the command of 
that God, produced from nothing, it becomes naturally, 
a very unscientific theory, and that has been the diffi- 
culty and the weak point of every theistic theory 
throughout the ages. These two defects we find there- 
fore in what is generally called the theory of mono- 
theism, the theory of a personal God, with all the 
qualities of a human being multiplied very much, and 
who, by his will, created this universe out of nothing, 
and yet is separate from it. This leads us into two 
difficulties. 

As w^e have seen, it is not a sufficient generalization, 
and secondly it is not an explanation of nature from 
nature. It holds that the effect is not the cause, that 
the cause is entirely separate from the effect. Yet all 
the tendency of human knowledge shows that the 
effect is but the cause in another form. To this idea 
the discoveries in modern science are pointing every 
day, and the latest theory that has been granted on 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 249 

all sides is what we call the theory of evolution, the 
principle of which is that the effect is but the cause 
in another form, readjustment of the old cause, and the 
old cause takes the form of the effect. Creation out 
of nothing would be laughed at by modern scientific 
men. 

Can religion stand these tests? If there be any 
religious theories which can stand these two tests they 
will be acceptable to the modern mind, to the thinking 
mind. Any other theory which we ask them to 
believe from the authority of priests, or churches, or 
books, the modern man is unable to accept, and the 
result is a hideous mass of unbelief. Even in those 
in whom there is an external display of belief, in their 
hearts there is a tremendous amount of unbelief. The 
rest give up religion, shrink away from it, as it were, 
do not want to touch it, regard it as priestcraft. 

Religion has been reduced to a sort of national 
form. It is one of our very best social remnants ; let 
it remain. But the real necessity which the grand- 
father of the modern man felt for it is gone. He no 
longer finds it satisfactory to his reason. The idea of 
such a personal God, and such a creation, the idea 
which is generally known as monotheism in every 
religion, cannot hold any longer. In India it could 
not hold its own because of the Buddhists, and that 
was the very point where the Buddhists gained their 
victory in ancient times. They showed that if nature 
is allowed its almost infinite power, and if nature can 
work out all its wants, it is simply unnecessary to 
insist that there is something beside nature. Even 
the soul is unnecessary. There was an old discus- 



250 J NANA YOGA 

sion, and you will sometimes find that old superstition 
living at the present day, the idea of substance and 
qualities. 

Most of you have read how, during the middle ages, 
and, I am sorry to say, even much later, this was one 
of the questions of discussion, whether qualities 
inhered in substance, or substance in qualities ; whether 
length and breadth and thickness form part of certain 
substances which we call dead matter, or if the sub- 
stance remains whether the qualities are there or not. 
Now comes our Buddhist, and he says you have no 
grounds to maintain the existence of such a substance, 
these qualities are all that exist. You do not see 
beyond them; and that is just the position of most 
of our modern agnostics. For, taking this fight of the 
substance and qualities upon a still higher plane is the 
fight between noumenon and phenomenon. There is 
this phenomenal world, the universe of continuous 
change, and there is something which does not change, 
and this duality of existence, noumenon and phenom- 
enon, some hold is true, and others with better reason 
claim that you have no right to admit the two, for 
what we see, feel, and think is only the phenomenon. 
You have no right to assert there is anything beyond 
phenomena; and there is no answer at all. The only 
answer we get is from the monistic theory of the 
Vedanta, that it is true that only one exists, and that 
one is either phenomenon or noumenon. It is not 
true that there are two, something changing, and in 
and through that, something which does not change, 
but it is the one and the same thing which appears as 
changing, and which is in reality unchangeable. 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 25 1 

To bring it to a concrete and philosophical conclu- 
sion, we have come to think of the body, and mind, 
and soul as many, but really there is only one; that 
one is appearing in all these various forms. Taking 
the well-known illustration of the monists, the rope 
appears as the snake. Some people mistake the rope 
for the snake, in the dark or through some other 
cause, but when knowledge comes, the snake vanishes 
and it is found to be a rope. By this illustration we 
see, that, when the snake exists in the mind, the rope 
has vanished, and when the rope exists, the snake has 
gone. When we see phenomena and phenomena only 
around us, the noumenon has vanished; but when we 
see the noumenon, the unchangeable, it naturally fol- 
lows that the phenomena have vanished. We under- 
stand then better the position of both the realist and 
the idealist. The realist looks at phenomena only, 
and the idealist tries to look at the noumenon. For 
the idealist, the really genuine idealist, who has truly 
arrived at the power of perception, where he can get 
away from changes, for him the changeful universe 
has vanished, and he has the right to say it is all 
delusion, there was no change. The realist at the 
same time looks at the changeful. For him the 
unchangeable has vanished, and he has a right to say 
this is all real. 

What is the outcome of this philosophy ? It is that 
the personal idea of God is not sufficient. We have to 
get to something higher, to the impersonal idea. Not 
that the personal idea would be destroyed by that, not 
that we supply proof that the personal God does not 
exist, but it is the only logical step that we can take. 



252 JNANA YOGA 

Just as we say that man is a personal-impersonal 
being. We are the impersonal, at the same time that 
we are the personal. So our old idea of God must 
go, for it is only a repetition of the same idea on a 
higher plane, the anthropomorphic idea of God. To 
the impersonal we must go at last, therefore, for the 
explanation of the personal, for the impersonal is a 
much higher generalization than the personal. The 
Infinite can only be impersonal, the personal is lim- 
ited. Thereby we preserve the personal and do not 
destroy it. Many times this doubt comes that if we 
arrive at the idea of the impersonal God the personal 
will be destroyed, if we arrive at the idea of • the 
impersonal man the personal will be lost. But the 
idea is not the destruction of the individual, but its 
real preservation. We cannot prove the individual by 
any other means than by referring to the universal, 
by proving that this individual is really the universal. 
If we think of the individual as separate from every- 
thing else in the universe, it cannot stand a minute, 
such a thing never existed. 

Secondly, by the application of the second principle, 
that the explanation of everything must come out of 
the nature of the thing, we confront a still bolder 
idea, and one more difficult to understand. But it 
comes to nothing short of this, that the Impersonal 
Being, our highest generalization, is in ourselves, and 
we are That. "O Svetaketu, thou art That; thou 
art that Impersonal Being; that God for whom thou 
hast been searching all over the universe is all the 
time thyself" — not in the personal sense but in the 
impersonal sense. The man we know now, the mani- 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 253 

fested, is personalized, but the reality of this is the 
impersonal. To understand the personal we have to 
refer to the impersonal, the particular must be referred 
to the general, and that impersonal is the Truth, the 
Self of man, but this personalized manifestation is 
not referred to as that truth. 

There will be various questions in connection with 
this, and I will try to answer them as we go on. 
Many difficulties will arise, but first let us clearly 
understand the position of monism. That this uni- 
verse which we see is all that exists; we need not 
seek elsewhere. Gross or fine it is all here : the effect 
and the cause are both here, the explanation is here. 
What is known as the particular is simply repetition 
in a minute form of the universal. We get our idea 
of the universe from the study of our own souls, and 
what is true there also holds good in the outside 
universe. The ideas of heaven and all these various 
places, even if they be true, are in the universe ; they 
altogether make this unity. The first idea, therefore, 
is that of a whole, a unit, composed of various minute 
particles, and each one of us, as it were, is a part of 
this unit. As manifested beings we appear to be 
separate, but our reality is in that unit, and the less 
we think of ourselves as separate from that unit the 
better for us. The more we think of ourselves as 
separate from this whole the more miserable we 
become. From this principle we get the principle of 
monistic ethics, and I dare to say that we cannot get 
any ethics from anywhere else. We know that the 
oldest idea of ethics was the will of some particular 
being or beings, but few are ready to accept that now. 



254 J NANA YOGA 

because it would be only a partial generalization. The 
Hindus say we must not do this, or that because the 
Vedas say so, but the Christian is not going to obey 
the authority of the Vedas. The Christian says you 
must do this and not do that because it is in the 
Bible. That will not be binding on those who do not 
believe in the Bible. But we must have a theory which 
is large enough to take in all these various grounds. 
Just as there are millions of people who are ready to 
believe in a personal Creator, there have also been 
thousands of the brightest minds in this world who 
felt that such ideas were not sufficient for them, and 
wanted something higher, and wherever religion was 
not broad enough to include all these minds the result 
was that the brightest minds in the society were 
always on the outside of religion, and never was this 
so marked as at the present time, especially in Europe. 
To include these, therefore, religion must become 
broad enough. Everything it claims must be judged 
from the standpoint of reason. Why religions should 
claim that they are not bound to abide by the stand- 
point of reason no one knows. If one does not take 
the standard of reason there cannot be any true judg- 
ment, even in the case of religions. One religion may 
ordain something very hideous. For instance, the 
Mohammedan religion allows all who are not Moham- 
medans to be killed. It is clearly stated in the Koran, 
kill the infidels if they do not become Mohammedans. 
They must be put to fire and sword. Now if you tell 
a Mohammedan that this is wrong, he will naturally 
ask: "How do you know that? How do you know it 
is not good ? Because your ideas of good and bad are 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 255 

from your books ? My book says it is good." If you 
say your book is older, there will come the Buddhist, 
who says : "My book is much older still." Then there 
will come the Hindu, who says: "My books are the 
oldest of all." Therefore referring to books will not 
do. Where is the standard by which you can com- 
pare ? You will say, look at the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the Mohammedan will reply, look at the Ethics of 
the Koran. The Mohammedan will say, who is the 
arbiter as to which is better of the two? Neither the 
New Testament nor the Koran can be the arbiter in a 
quarrel between them. There must be some indepen- 
dent authority, and that cannot be any book, but some- 
thing which is universal; and what is more universal 
than reason? It has been said that reason is not 
strong enough; it does not always help us to get the 
Truth; many times it makes mistakes, and therefore 
the conclusion was, that we must believe in the authori- 
ty of a church. That was said by a Roman Catholic, 
but I could not see the logic of it. On the other hand, 
if I have to state a proposition, I should say if reason 
be so weak, a body of priests would be weaker, and I 
am not going to accept their verdict, but I will yield 
to reason, because with all its weakness there is some 
chance of getting truth, while by the other means I 
should not get any truth. 

We have to follow reason, therefore, and we have 
to sympathize with those who do not come to any 
sort of belief following reason. For it is better that 
mankind should become atheists by following reason, 
than believe in two hundred millions of gods by fol- 
lowing anybody. What we want is progress, devel- 



256 J NANA YOGA 

opment, realization. No theories ever made men 
higher. No amount of books can help us to become 
purer. The only power that lies in ourselves is in 
realization, and that comes from thinking. Let men 
think. A clod of earth never thinks; you may take 
it for granted that a clod of earth believes in every- 
thing, but it is only a lump of earth. The glory of 
man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of 
man that he differs therein from animals, and there- 
fore man must think. I believe in reason and follow 
reason, having seen enough of the evils of authority, 
for I was born in a country where they have gone to 
the extreme of authority. 

The Hindiis believe that creation has come out of 
their book. How do you know there is a cow? 
Because the word cow is in the Vedas. How do you 
know there is a man outside ? Because the word man 
is there. If it had not been there would have been no 
man outside. That is what they say. Authority with 
a vengeance ! And it is not studied as I have studied 
it now, but some of the most powerful minds have 
taken it up and spun out some most wonderful logical 
theories round it. They have argued it out and there 
it stands, a whole system of philosophy, and thousands 
of the brightest intellects have been dedicated through 
thousands of years to the working out of this theory. 
Such has been the power of authority, and great are 
the dangers thereof ! It stunts the growth of humani- 
ty, and we must not forget that we want growth. 
Even in all relative truth, more than the truth itself we 
want the exercise. That is our life. 

The monistic theory has this merit, that it is the 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 257 

nearest to a demonstrable truth in theology that we 
can get. The idea of the Impersonal, and that nature 
is the evolution of that Impersonal, is the nearest that 
we can get to any truth that is demonstrable, and 
every other idea, every conception of God which is 
partial and little and personal is not rational. And 
it has this glory, that this rational conception of God 
proves that these partial conceptions which we see 
are yet necessary for many. For that is the only argu- 
ment in their favor. You sometimes see people who 
say this personal explanation is irrational, but it is 
comfortable ; they want a comfortable religion and we 
understand that it is necessary for them. The clear 
light of truth very few in this life can bear, much less 
work upon. It is necessary, therefore, that this com- 
fortable religion should be there; it helps many souls, 
in time, to a better. The little mind whose circum- 
ference is very limited and requires little things to 
build it up, never dares to soar in thought. Their 
conceptions are very good and helpful, even of little 
gods and symbols and ideals, but you have to under- 
stand the impersonal, for it is in and through that 
alone that these others can be made helpful and good. 
For instance, the man who understands and believes 
in the impersonal — ^John Stuart Mill, for example — 
says the personal God is impossible, cannot be proved. 
I admit with him, that it cannot be demonstrated, but 
it is the highest reading of the Absolute that can be 
reached by the human intellect, and what else is the 
universe but various readings of the Absolute. It is 
like a book before us, and each one has brought his 
intellect to read the book, and each one has to read 



258 JNANA YOGA 

it for himself. There is something which is similar 
in the intellect of all men, therefore certain things are 
common to the intellect of mankind. That you and I 
see a chair proves that there is something common to 
both our minds. Suppose a being comes with another 
sense; he will not see the chair at all, but all beings 
similarly constituted will see the same things. Thus 
this universe itself is the Absolute, the unchangeable, 
the noumenon, and the phenomena constitute the read- 
ing thereof. For you will first find that all phenomena 
are finite. Every phenomenon that we can see, feel, 
or think of, is finite, limited by our knowledge; and 
a personal God as we conceive of Him is in fact a 
phenomenon. The very idea of causation exists only 
in the phenomenal world, and God, as the cause of 
this universe, must naturally be thought of as limited, 
and yet He is the same impersonal God. This very 
universe, as we have seen, is the same Impersonal 
Being read by our intellect. Whatever is reality in the 
universe is that Impersonal Being, and the forms and 
conceptions are given to It by our intellects. What- 
ever is real in this table is that Being, and the table 
form and all other forms are given by the intellects of 
men. 

Now, motion, for instance, which is a necessary 
adjunct of the phenomenal, cannot be spoken of the 
universal. Every little bit, every atom inside the 
universe, is in a constant state of change and motion, 
but the universe as a whole is unchangeable, because 
motion or change is a relative thing, we can only think 
of something in motion in comparison to something 
not in motion. There must be two in order to under- 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 259 

stand motion. The whole mass of the universe, taken 
as a unit, cannot move. In regard to what will it 
move? It cannot be said to change. With regard to 
what will it change? So the whole is the Absolute, 
but within it every particle is in a constant state of 
flux and change. It is unchangeable and changeable 
at the same time, impersonal and personal in one. 
This is our conception of the universe, of motion and 
of God, and that is what is meant by "Thou art That." 
For we must know our own nature. 

The finite, manifested man forgets his origin, like 
the water that comes from the ocean forgetting its 
origin and thinking itself to be entirely separate. So 
we, as personalized beings, little, differentiated beings, 
forget our reality, and what is meant by the teaching 
of monism is not that we must give up these differ- 
entiations, but that we must learn to understand what 
they are. We, that infinite Being, that very Soul, are 
like the water, and this water starts and has its being 
from, and is really the ocean, not a part, but the whole 
of the ocean, for the infinite mass of energy which 
exists is yours and mine, because you and I, and every 
being, represent so many channels, so many paths, 
through which this Infinite Reality is manifesting 
Itself, and the whole mass of changes which we call 
evolution is the soul manifesting all this infinite ener- 
gy, and we cannot stop anywhere on this side of the 
Infinite. Our power, and blessedness, and wisdom, 
cannot stop anywhere this side of the Infinite. Infinite 
power and existence and blessedness are ours, not 
that we will acquire them, but they are our own; we 
have to manifest them. 

This is one great idea that comes from monism, and 



260 J NANA YOGA 

one that is very hard to understand. I find in myself 
how from childhood every one around teaches weak- 
ness, how I have been told since I was born that I 
was a weak thing. It is very hard for me now to 
understand my own strength, but by analysis and rea- 
soning I see I must simply gain knowledge of my own 
strength, must realize it. All the knowledge that we 
have in this world, where did it come from? It is 
in us. What knowledge is outside? Show me one 
bit. Knowledge was not in matter; it was in man all 
the time. Nobody ever created knowledge; man dis- 
covers it, brings it from within. It is lying there. 
The whole of that big banyan tree, which covers miles 
of ground perhaps, was in the little seed, like one- 
eighth of a mustard seed— that mass of energy was 
there confined. The gigantic intellect we know can lie 
coiled up in the protoplasmic cell, and why not infinite 
energy? We know that it is so. It may seem like a 
paradox, but it is true. All of us have come out of" 
one protoplasmic cell, and all the little powers we; 
have were coiled up there. You cannot say it was ', 
acquired by food; for build up food mountains high 
and see what power comes out. The energy was 
there; potentially, but still there, and so is infinite 
power in the soul of man, if man never knows it. It 
is only a question of being conscious of it. Slowly i 
this infinite giant is, as it were, arousing himself, I 
waking up, and becoming conscious of his power, and 
the more he is becoming conscious the more bonds are 
breaking, chains are snapping all around, and there 
must come a day when infinite consciousness is 
regained ; with power and wisdom this giant will stand 
erect. Let us all help to bring that about. 



XV 

PRACTICAL VEDANTA 

Part IV 

We have been dealing more with the universal so far. 
This morning I will try to bring before you the 
Vedantic ideas of the relation of the particular to the 
universal. As we have seen in the dualistic form of 
Vedic doctrines, the earlier forms, there was a clearly 
defined particular and limited soul for every being. 
There have been a great many theories about this par- 
ticular soul in each individual, but the main discussion 
was between the ancient Buddhists and the ancient 
Vedantists, the one believing in the individual soul 
complete in itself, the other denying in toto the exist- 
ence of such an individual soul. As I told you the 
other day, it is pretty much the same discussion you 
had in Europe as to substance and quality, one set 
holding that behind the qualities there is something 
as substance, in which the qualities inhere, and the 
other denying the existence of such a substance as 
being unnecessary; the qualities may live by them- 
selves. The most ancient theory of the soul, of course, 
is based upon the argument from self -identity — "I 
am I"— that the "F' of yesterday is the "I" of to-day, 
and the "I" of to-day will be the *T" of to-morrow, 

261 



262 JNANA YOGA 

that in spite of all the changes that are happening to 
the body, I yet believe that I am the same "I." This 
seems to have been the central argument with those 
who believed in a limited, and yet perfectly complete, 
individual soul. 

On the other hand, the ancient Buddhists denied the 
necessity of such an assumption. They brought for- 
ward the argument that all that we know, and all that 
we possibly can know, are simply these changes. The 
positing of an unchangeable and unchanging substance 
is simply superfluous, and then, if there were any such 
unchangeable thing, we could never understand it, nor 
should we ever be able to cognize it in any sense of 
the word. The same discussion you will find at the 
present time going on in Europe between the relig- 
ionists and the idealists on the one side, and the mod- 
ern positivists and agnostics on the other; one set 
believing there is something which does not change — 
of whom the latest representative has been your Her- 
bert Spencer — that we catch a glimpse of something 
which is, as it were, unchangeable. And the other is 
represented by the modern Comtists and modern Ag- 
nostics. Those of you who were interested a few 
years ago in the discussions between Mr. Harrison and 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, may have found out that it is 
the same old difficulty, the one party standing for a 
substance behind the changeful, and the other party 
denying the necessity for such an assumption. One 
party says, we cannot conceive of changes without 
conceiving of something which does not change, the 
other party brings out the argument that this is super- 
fluous; we can only conceive of something which is 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 263 

changing. As to the unchanging, we can neither 
know, feel, nor sense it. 

The great question in India did not find its solution 
in the very ancient times, because we have seen that 
the assumption of a substance which is behind the 
qualities, and which is not the qualities, can never be 
substantiated; nay, even the argument from self- 
identity, from memory, that I am the "I" of yesterday 
because I remember it, and therefore I have been a 
continuous something — cannot be substantiated. The 
other quibble that is generally put forward is a mere de- 
lusion of words. For instance, a man may take a long 
series of such sentences as "1 do," "I go," *T dream," 
"I sleep," "I move," and here you will find it claimed 
that the doing, going and dreaming, etc., have been 
changing, but what remained constant was that "I." 
As such they conclude that the *T" is something which 
is constant, and an individual in itself, but all these 
changes belong to the body. This, though apparently 
very convincing and clear, is based upon word pun- 
ning. The "I" and the doing, going and dreaming, 
may be separate in black and white, and on a piece of 
paper, but no one can separate them in his mind. 

When I eat I think of myself as eating — I am iden- 
tified with eating. When I run I and the running are 
not two separate things. Thus the argument from per- 
sonal identity does not seem to be very strong. The 
other argument, from memory, is also weak. If the 
identity of my being is represented by my memory, 
many things which I have forgotten are lost from 
that identity. And we know that people under cer- 
tain conditions will forget their whole past. In many 



264 J NANA YOGA 

cases of lunacy a man will think of himself as made 
of glass, or as being an animal. If the existence of 
that man depends on memory he has become glass, 
which not being the case we cannot make the identity 
of the self depend on such a flimsy argument as mem- 
ory. What remains? That on the side of the soul, 
limited, yet complete and continuing, its identity can- 
not be established as separate from the qualities. We 
cannot establish a narrowed down, limited existence 
behind which there is a bunch of qualities. 

On the other hand, the argument of the ancient 
Buddhists seems to be stronger — that we do not know, 
and cannot know, anything that is beyond the bunch 
of qualities. According to them the soul consists of 
a bundle of qualities called sensations and feelings. 
A mass of such is what is called the soul, and this 
mass is continually changing. The Advaitist theory 
of the soul reconciles both these positions. 

The position of the Advaitist is that it is true that 
we cannot think of the substance as separate from the 
qualities; at the same time we cannot think of change 
and not change; it would be impossible; but the very 
thing which is substance is the same which is the 
quality. Substance and quality are not two. It is the 
unchangeable that is appearing as the changeable. 
The unchangeable substance of the universe is not 
something separate from this changeful universe. The 
noumenon is not something different from the phe- 
nomena, but it is the very noumenon which has become 
the phenomena. There is a soul which is unchanging, 
and what we call feelings and perceptions, nay, even 
the body, is the very same soul seen from another point 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 265 

of View. We have got into the habit of thinking that 
we have bodies and souls and so forth, but really 
speaking we can only have one, not two even. 

When I think of myself as a body I am a body alone ; 
it is useless to say I am something else. And when 
I think of myself as the soul the body vanishes, per- 
ception of the body does not remain. None can get 
the perception of the Self without his perception of 
the body having vanished, none can get perception of 
the substance without his perception of the qualities 
vanishing. 

The ancient illustration of the Advaita, the rope 
taken for a snake, may be brought in here to illustrate 
a little further that when a man mistakes the rope 
for a snake the rope has vanished, and when he takes 
it for a rope the snake has vanished, and the rope 
remains. These ideas that we have of dual existence 
and treble existence come from analysis, and after 
analysis they are written in books, and we read those 
books or hear about them, until we come under the 
delusion that we really have a dual perception of the 
soul and the body, but such a perception never really 
exists. The perception is either for body or for soul. 
It requires no other arguments. You can verify it in 
your own minds. 

Try to think of yourself as a soul, as a disembodied 
something. You will find it is almost impossible, and 
those few who find it possible will find that at the time 
when they realize themselves as soul they have no 
idea of body. You have heard, or have seen, perhaps, 
some persons who had been at certain times in peculiar 
states of mind, brought about either by hypnotism 



266 J NANA YOGA 

or some hysterical disease, or drugs. From their 
experience you may gather that when they were per- 
ceiving the internal something, the external had van- 
ished for them; it did not remain. This shows that 
whatever exists is one. That one is appearing in these 
various forms, and all these various forms give rise 
to the relation of cause and effect. The relation of 
cause and effect is one of evolution — ^the one becomes 
the other, and so on. The cause, as it were, some- 
times vanishes, and in its place leaves the effect. If 
the soul is the cause of the body, the soul, as it were, 
vanishes for the time being, and the body remains, 
and when the body vanishes the soul remains. This 
theory would meet the arguments of the Buddhists, 
the arguments that were levelled against the assump- 
tion of the dualism of body and soul, by denying the 
duality, and showing that the substance and the qual- 
ities are one and the same thing, appearing in various 
forms. 

We have seen also that this idea of the unchange- 
able can only be established as regards the whole, but 
never as regards the part. The very idea of part 
comes from the idea of change, of motion. Every- 
thing that is limited we can understand and know 
because it is changeable, and the whole must be 
unchangeable because it cannot change — there is no 
other thing besides it. Change is always in regard 
to something which does not change, or which changes 
relatively less. 

According to Advaita, therefore, the idea of the 
soul as universal, unchangeable and immortal, can be 
as far as possible demonstrated. The difficulty would 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 26'J 

be as regards the particular. What shall we do with 
the old dualistic theories which have got such a hold 
on us, which we have all to pass through, these beliefs 
in limited, little, individual souls? 

We have seen that we are immortal with regard to 
the whole, but the difficulty is, we desire so much to 
be immortal with regard to the parts of us. We have 
seen that we are infinite, and that that is our real indi- 
viduality. But we want so much to make these little 
souls individual ! What becomes of them when we 
find in our everyday experience that these little souls 
are continuously growing and cannot really be indi- 
vidual? They are the same yet not the same. The 
"I" of yesterday is the 'T" of to-day, and yet not. It 
is changed somewhat, and if we take the most modern 
of conceptions, that of evolution for instance, we find 
that the "I" is a continuously changing, expanding 
identity. 

If it be true that man is the evolution of a mollusc, 
the mollusc individual is the same as the man, only it 
has to becom_e expanded a great deal. From mollusc 
to man has been a continuous expansion towards the 
state of infinity. Therefore the limited soul can be 
styled an individual which is continuously expanding 
towards the Individual. Perfect individuality will only 
be reached when it has reached the Infinite, but on 
this side of the Infinite it is a continuously changing, 
growing personality. 

The Advaitist system of the Vedanta has one pecu- 
liar tendency, the tendency to harmonize the preceding 
systems. In many cases it was very helpful ; in others 
it hurt the philosophy. They had the same idea that 



268 J NANA YOGA 

is called the theory of evolution in modern times, that 
all is growth, step by step, and this instrument in their 
hands made it easy for them to harmonize all preced- 
ing systems. Thus not one of these preceding ideas 
was rejected. The fault of the Buddhistic ideas was 
that they had neither the faculty nor the perception 
of this continual expansive growth, and for this reason, 
they never even made an attempt to harmonize their 
system with the pre-existing steps towards the ideal. 
They rejected all of them as useless and harmful. 

You will find this tendency is a most harmful one 
in religion. A man gets a new and better idea, and 
then he looks back on those he has given up, and forth- 
with decides that they were mischievous and unnec- 
essary. He never thinks that however crude they may 
appear from his present point of view, they were very 
useful to him, that it was necessary for him to reach 
his present state through these ideas, and that every 
one of us has to grow in a similar fashion, living first 
in crude ideas, taking benefit from them, and so arriv- 
ing at a higher standard. To the oldest theories, 
therefore, the Advaita is friendly. Dualism, and all 
theories that had preceded it, are accepted by the 
Advaita, not in a patronizing way, but with the con- 
viction that they are truths, manifestations of the 
same truth ; and that they have all to rise to the same 
conclusions that the Advaita has reached. 

With words of blessing, and not of cursing, are to 
be preserved all these various steps through which 
humanity had to pass. Therefore all these dualistic 
systems have been kept intact in the Vedanta, and 
never rejected or thrown out, and the dualistic con- 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 269 

ception of an individual soul, limited, yet complete in 
itself, finds a place in the Vedanta. According to this 
conception the man dies and goes to other worlds, and 
so forth, and these ideas are also kept in their entirety, 
because with this recognition of growth behind the 
Advaitist system any one of these theories can be kept 
in its proper place, by understanding that they repre- 
sent only a partial view of the truth. 

If you regard the universe from a certain point of 
view from which you can only look at one part, this 
is the way in which the universe presents itself to the 
mind. From the dualistic standpoint this universe can 
only be looked upon as a creation of matter or force, 
can only be looked upon as the play of a certain will, 
and that will again can only be looked upon as sep- 
arate from the universe; thus a man from such a 
standpoint has to see himself as composed of a dual 
nature, of the body and soul, and this soul, though 
limited, appears individually complete in itself. Such 
a man's ideas of immortality and of the future life 
would be applied to this soul. These phases of 
thought have been kept in the Vedanta, and it is neces- 
sary, therefore, for me to present to you a few of the 
popular ideas of dualism. According to this theory 
we have a body, of course. Behind the body there is 
what they call a fine body. This fine body is also made 
up of materials, only very fine. It is the receptacle of 
all our karma, of all our actions ; the impressions of all 
actions live there in that fine body, ready to spring up. 
Every thought that we think, every deed that we do, 
after a certain time becomes fine, goes into seed form, 
so to speak; that lives in the fine body in a potential 



270 JNANA YOGA 

form, and after a time it emerges again and bears its 
results. These results condition the life of man ; thus 
he has moulded his own life. It is not that man is 
bound by any laws excepting those he makes for him- 
self. Our works, our thoughts, our deeds, are but 
threads in the net which we throw round ourselves 
for good or for evil. Once we set in motion a certain 
power, we have to bear the full consequences of it. 
This is the law of Karma. Behind the subtle body 
lives the jiva, or individual soul of man. There are 
various discussions about the size, or the form, or 
the non-form, of this individual soul. According to 
some it is very small, like an atom ; according to others 
it is not so small as that; according to others it is 
very big, and so on. This jiva is a part of the uni- 
versal substance, and it also is eternal ; without begin- 
ning it is existing as a part of the whole ; it will exist 
without end, and it is passing through all these forms 
in order to manifest its real nature as purity. Every 
action that retards this manifestation is called an evil 
action ; so with thoughts. And every action and every 
thought that helps the jiva to expand, to manifest its 
real nature, is a good action. One theory is common 
in India with the crudest dualists and the most ad- 
vanced non-dualists — that all the possibilities and 
powers of the soul are always in it, and will not come 
from any external source. They are in the soul in 
potential form, and the whole work of life, or lives, 
is simply directed to manifesting those potentialities. 
They have also the doctrine of reincarnation, that 
after this body has been dissolved, the jiva will have 
another body, and after that has been dissolved it will 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 27I 

have another body, and so on, either here or in some 
other worlds; but this world is given the preference; 
it is considered as the best of worlds for all our pur- 
poses. Other worlds are conceived of as worlds where 
there is very little misery, but for that very reason 
they argue that there is less chance there of thinking 
of higher things. This world being nicely balanced, 
a good deal of misery, and some happiness, too, the 
jiva sometime or other gets awakened, as it were, and 
thinks of freeing itself. But just as very rich persons 
in this world have the least chance of thinking of 
higher things, so if the jtva goes to heaven it will 
have no chance, but only the same position intensified, 
having a very fine body w^hich thinks of no disease, 
being without the necessity of eating, or drinking, and 
having all its desires fulfilled. The jwa goes there, 
with enjoyment after enjoyment, and forgets all its 
real nature. Still there are some higher worlds, 
where, in spite of all these enjoyments, further evolu- 
tion is possible. Some dualists conceive of the goal 
to be reached as the highest heaven, where souls will 
go and live with God forever. They will have beau- 
tiful bodies there, and will know no more disease or 
death, or any sort of evil. They will have all their 
desires fulfilled, and live with God forever, and from 
time to time some of them will come back to this earth 
and take another body to teach human beings the way, 
and the great teachers of the world have been such. 
They have been already free, and were living with God 
in that sphere, but their mercy for suffering humanity 
here was very great, so they came and incarnated again, 
and preached unto mankind the way to heaven. 



272 J NANA YOGA 

Of course we know that the Advaita holds that this 
cannot be the goal or the ideal; bodilessness must be 
the ideal. The ideal cannot be finite. Anything short 
of the Infinite cannot be the ideal, and there cannot 
be an infinite body. That would be impossible, as body 
comes from limitation. There cannot be infinite 
thought, because thought comes from limitation. We 
have to go beyond the body, and beyond thought too, 
says the Advaita. And we have also seen the other 
peculiar Advaitist position, that this freedom is not 
to be attained, it already fj. We only forget it and 
deny it. This perfection is not to be attained, it 
already exists. This immortality and unchangeable- 
ness are not to be attained; they already exist. W^e 
have them all the time. If you dare declare of your- 
self that you are free, free you are this moment. If 
you say you are bound, bound you will remain. How- 
ever, the dualists and others have these ideas. You 
can take up whichever )^ou like. 

This highest ideal of the Vedanta is very difficult 
to understand, and people are always quarrelling about 
it, and the greatest difficulty is that when they get 
hold of one set of these ideas they want to deny and 
fight the other sets. Take up what you are fit for, 
jjand let others take up what they are fit for. If you 
' are desirous of clinging to this little individuality, to 
this limited manhood, you will have to remain in it, 
you will have these lower ideals, and be content and 
pleased with them. If your experience of manhood 
has been very good and nice, retain it as long as you 
like, for you know you are the makers of your own 
fortunes; none can compel you. You will be men 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 273 

as long as you like ; none can deter you. If you want 
to be angels, you will be angels ; that is the law. But 
there may be others who do not like to be angels 
even. What right have you to tell them that they 
must be? You may be frightened to lose a hundred 
pounds ; there may be others who would not wink a 
bit if they lost all the money in the world. There 
have been such, and are still such. Why do you dare 
to judge them according to your standard? You 
cling on to your limitations, and these little worldly 
ideas may be your highest ideal. You are welcome. 
It will be to you as you wish. But there are others 
who have seen the truth, finished all this, and cannot 
rest in these limitations, who want to rush outside, and 
whom nothing in this world satisfies. The world with 
all its enjoyments is a mere mud puddle for them. 
Why do you want to bind them down to your ideas? 
You must get rid of this once for all. Give place to 
every one. 

I once read a certain story of how some ships were 
caught in a cyclone in the South Sea Islands, and 
there was a picture in the Illustrated London News. 
All were wrecked except one, an English vessel which 
weathered the storm, and the picture showed those 
men who were getting drowned standing up on the 
decks and cheering the people who were sailing through 
the storm.* Be brave like that and do not try to 
drag others down to where you are. There is another 
foolish notion going on — if we are to lose our little 
individuality, there will be no morality, no hope for 

* H. M. S. Calliope and the American men-of-war at Samoa. 
-Ed. 



f- 



274 J NANA YOGA 

humanity. As if everybody had been dying for hu- 
manity all the time! God bless you, if in every 
country there were two hundred men and women 
really wanting to do good to humanity, the millennium 
would come in five days. We know how we are dying 
for humanity. These are tall talks and nothing else. 
But the history of the world shows that those who 
never thought of this little individuality were the 
greatest benefactors of the human race, and the more 
men and women think of themselves the less were 
they able to do for others. One is selfishness, the 
other unselfishness, clinging on to their little enjoy- 
ments, and to desire the continuation and repetition of 
this state of things is utter selfishness. It arises not 
from any desire for truth, its genesis is not kindness for 
other beings, but in the utter selfishness of the human 
heart, in this idea of "I will have everything," without 
caring for any one else. This is as it appears to me. 
I would like to see in the world more moral men like 
some of those grand old prophets and sages of ancient 
times who would have given up a hundred lives if they 
could by so doing benefit one little animal! Talk of 
morality and doing good to others ! Silly talk of the 
present time! 

I would like to see moral men like Gautama Buddha, 
who did not believe in a personal God, or a personal 
soul, never questioned, never asked, stood there a per- 
fect agnostic, and yet a man ready to lay down his life 
for any one, and who worked all his life for the good 
of all, and thought only of that. Well has it been said 
by his biographer, describing his birth, he was born 
for the good of many, for a blessing to many. He 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 275 

never even went to the forest to meditate for his own 
salvation. He felt that the world was burning; some 
one must find a way out. Why is there so much 
misery was the one thought that dominated his whole 
life. Do you think we are so moral as that? 

The more immoral is the man, the more immoral is 
the race, the more selfish it is. That race which is 
bound down to itself has been the most cruel and 
the most wicked in the whole world. There has not 
been a religion that has clung on to this dualism more 
than that founded by the Prophet of Arabia or which 
has shed so much blood and been so cruel to other 
beings. In the Koran there is a doctrine that a man 
who does not believe these teachings should be killed ; 
it is a mercy to kill him ! And the surest way to get 
to heaven, where there are beautiful houris, and all 
sorts of sense enjoyments, is by killing these unbe- 
lievers. Think of how much bloodshed there has been 
in consequence of such beliefs! 

In the Religion of Christ there was little of crude- 
ness, very little of difference between the pure religion 
of Christ and of the Vedanta. You find there the idea 
of oneness preached, and Christ also takes up the dual- 
istic ideas in order to please the people, give them 
something to take hold of in order to come up to the 
highest ideal. The same prophet who preached "Our 
Father which art in heaven,'' also preached, "I and 
my Father are one," and the same prophet knew that 
through the Father in heaven lies the way to the "I 
and my Father are one." There was only blessing 
and love in the religion of Christ, but as soon as crude- 
ness came, it was degraded into something not much 



276 J NANA YOGA 

better than the reHgion of the Prophet of Arabia. It 
came out of crudeness, this fight for the httle self, 
cHnging on to this "I" not only in the passage through 
this life, but also in the desire to continue it even after 
death. This they declare is unselfishness; this is the 
foundation of morality. Lord help us all, if this be 
the foundation of morality! Selfishness is made the 
foundation of morality, and men and women who 
ought to know better stand aghast, think all morality 
will be destroyed, if these little selves go. The watch- 
word of all well-being, of moral good, is not I, but 
thou. Who cares whether there is such a thing as 
heaven or hell, who cares if there be a soul or not, who 
cares if there be an unchangeable or not? Here is 
the world, and it is full of misery. Come out into it 
as Buddha came and struggle to lessen it or die in the 
attempt. Forget yourselves ; this is the first lesson to 
be learned, whether you are a theist or an atheist, 
whether you are an agnostic or a Vedantist, a Christian 
or a Mohammedan. The one lesson obvious to all is 
destruction of the little self and building up of the 
Real Self. 

Two forces have been working side by side in par- 
allel lines. The one says "I," the other says "not I.'^ 
Their manifestation is not only in man but in animals, 
not only in animals but in the lowest of worms. The 
tigress that plunges her fangs into the red hot blood 
of a human being, would give up her life to protect 
her young. The most depraved of men, who thinks 
nothing of taking the lives of his brother men, will 
perhaps do anything to save his starving wife or his 
little children. Thus throughout creation these two 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 2'J'J 

forces are working side by side, where you find the 
one you find the other. The one is selfishness, the 
other is unselfishness. The one is assumption, the 
other is renunciation. The one takes, the other gives 
up everything. From the lowest to the highest, the 
whole universe is the playground of these two forces. 
This does not require any demonstration ; it is obvious 
to all. 

What right has one section of the community to base 
the whole work and evolution of the universe upon 
one of these two, upon competition and struggle? 
What right has it to base the whole working of the 
universe upon passion, and fight, and quarrel, and 
struggle ? That these exist we do not deny ; but what 
right has any one to deny the working of the other 
force? Can men deny that this love, this "not I," 
this renunciation, is the only positive power in the 
universe ? The other is misguided employment of the 
same power of love; the power of love brought com- 
petition also. The real genesis of the competition was 
in love. The real genesis of even evil was in unselfish- 
ness. The creator of evil is good, and the end is also 
good. It is only misdirection of the power of good. 
A man who murders another man is moved to do it 
perhaps, by the love of his own child. His love had 
become limited, and had come down to that one little 
baby, and been taken oflf from the millions of other 
people in the universe. Yet, limited or unlimited, it 
is the same love. 

Thus the motive power of the whole universe, in 
whatever way it manifests itself, is that one wonderful 
thing, unselfishness, renunciation, love, the real, the 



278 J NANA YOGA 

only living force in existence. Therefore the Vedan- 
tist insists upon that oneness and not duality. We 
insist upon this explanation because we cannot admit 
two causes of the universe. If we simply hold that by 
limitation the same unit, beautiful wonderful love 
appears to be evil or vile, we find the whole universe 
explained by the one force of love. If not, two causes 
of the universe have to be taken for granted, one good 
and one evil; two forces — one love and the other 
hatred. Which is more logical ? Certainly the one. 

I have been going into things which do not belong 
to the dualists possibly. I cannot stand long with 
the dualists, I am afraid. My idea is to show that the 
highest ideal of morality and unselfishness goes hand 
in hand with the highest metaphysical conception ; that 
you need not lower your conception to get ethics 
and morality ; on the other hand, to reach a real basis 
of morality and ethics you must have the highest 
philosophical and scientific conceptions. Human 
knowledge is not antagonistic to human well-being. 
On the other hand, it is knowledge alone that will 
save us in every department of life — in knowledge is 
worship. The more we know the better. As the 
Vedantist says, the cause of all that is apparently evil 
is the limitation of the Unlimited. The love which 
gets limited into little channels and seems to be evil, 
eventually comes out at the other end and manifests 
God. And the Vedanta says that the cause of all this 
apparent evil is in ourselves ; do not blame any super- 
natural being, neither be hopeless and despondent, nor 
think w^e are in a place from which we can never escape 
until some one comes and lends us a helping hand. 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 279 

That cannot be, says the Vedanta; we are like silk- 
worms. We make the thread out of our own sub- 
stance, and spin the cocoon, and in course of time 
are bound inside. But not forever. In that cocoon 
we have to develop spiritual realization and, like the 
butterfly, come out free. This network of karma we 
have thrown around ourselves; in our ignorance we 
feel as if we were bound, and sometimes weep and 
wail for help. But help does not come from without ; 
it comes from within ourselves. Cry to all the gods 
in the universe. I cried for years, and in the end I 
found that I was helped; but help came from within. 
And 1 had to undo what I had done by mistake. That 
is the only way. I had to cut the net which I had 
thrown round myself, and the power to do this is 
within. Of this I am certain, that not one aspiration, 
well-guided or ill-guided, in my life has been in vain, 
but I am the resultant of all my past good and evil 
both. I have committed many mistakes in my life, 
but mark you, I am sure of this, without every one 
of those mistakes I would not be what I am to-day, 
and I am quite satisfied to have made them. I do not 
mean that you are to go home and commit mistakes ; 
do not misunderstand me that way. But do not mope 
because of some mistakes you have committed, but 
know that in the end they will all come out straight. 
It cannot be otherwise, because goodness is our nature, 
purity is our nature, and that nature can never be 
destroyed. Our essential nature always remains the 
same. 

What we are to understand is this, that what we 
call mistakes, or evil, we commit because we are weak, 



28o J NANA YOGA 

and we are weak because we are ignorant. I prefer 
to call them mistakes. The word sin, although orig- 
inally a very good word, has got a certain flavor around 
it that frightens me. Who makes us ignorant? We 
ourselves. We throw our hands before our eyes and 
weep that it is dark. Take the hands off and the light 
exists always for us, the self-effulgent nature of the 
human soul. Do you not see what your modern scien- 
tific men say ? What is the cause of all this evolution ? 
Desire. The animal wants to do something else, but 
does not find the environment satisfactory, and there- 
fore manufactures a new body. Who manufactures? 
He himself, his will. You have developed from the 
lowest amoeba. Exercise that will and it will take you 
higher still. The will is almighty. If it is almighty 
you will say, why cannot I do many things ? But you 
are thinking only of your little self. Look back on 
yourselves from the state of the amoeba to the human 
being ; who made all that ? Your own will. Can you 
deny then that it is almighty? That which has 
made you come up so high can make you go higher 
still. What we want is character, strengthening this 
will, and not weakening it. 

If I teach you, therefore^ that your nature is evil, 
and tell you to go home in sackcloth and ashes and 
weep your lives out because you made certain false 
steps it will not help you, but will weaken you all the 
more, and I shall be showing you the road to more 
evil than good. If this room were full of darkness 
for thousands of years and you come in and begin 
to weep and wail "Oh, the darkness," will the darkness 
vanish? Bring the light in, strike a match and light 



PRACTICAL VEDANTA 281 

comes in a moment. So what good will it do you 
to think all your lives *'Oh, I have done evil, I have 
made many mistakes?" It requires no ghost to tell 
us that! Bring in the light and the evil goes in a 
moment. Strengthen the real nature, build up your- 
selves, the effulgent, the resplendent, the ever pure, 
call that up in every one that you see. I wish that 
every one of us had come to such a state that even 
when we see the vilest of human beings we could see 
the real Self within, and instead of condemning, say 
''Rise, thou effulgent one, rise thou who art always 
pure, rise thou birthless and deathless, rise almighty, 
and manifest your true nature. These little manifes- 
tations do not befit thee." This is the highest prayer 
that the Advaita teaches. This is the one prayer, to 
remember our nature, the God Who is always within us, 
thinking of Him always as the Infinite, the Almighty, 
the ever good, the ever beneficent, the selfless, bereft of 
all this little self, little limitations, and because that 
nature is selfless, it is strong and fearless; only to 
selfishness comes fear. He who has nothing to desire 
for himself whom does he fear, what can frighten him ? 
What fear has death for him ? What fear has evil for 
him ? So we must think, if we are Advaitists, that we 
are dead and gone from this moment. The old Mr., 
Mrs. or Miss So-and-So is gone, mere superstition, and 
what remains is the ever pure, the ever strong, the 
almighty, the all-knowing — that remains for us, and 
then all fear has vanished from us. Who can injure 
us, the omnipresent? Thus all weakness has vanished 
from us, and our only work is to rouse this knowledge 
in our fellow beings. We see that they too are the 



282 J NANA YOGA 

same pure self, only they do not know it; we must 
teach them, we must help them to rouse up the infinite 
nature in each. This is what I feel is absolutely neces- 
sary over the whole world. These doctrines are old, 
older than many mountains possibly. All truth is 
eternal. Truth is nobody's property ; no race, no indi- 
vidual can lay any claim to truth. Truth is the nature 
of all souls. Who lays any special claim to it? But 
it has to be made practical, to be made simple, for the 
highest truths are the simplest of all. It m.ust be 
made thoroughly simple, so that it may penetrate every 
pore of human society, that it may become the property 
of the highest intellects and the commonest minds ; of 
the child, the woman, and the man at the same time. 
All these ratiocinations of logic, all these bundles of 
metaphysics, all these theologies and ceremonies, may 
have been good in their own time, but let us try to 
make things simpler and bring about the golden days 
when every man is a worshipper, and the Reality in 
every man is the object of worship. 



XVI 

VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 

(Lecture delivered at Calcutta.) 

Far back where no recorded history, nor even the 
dim Hght of tradition can penetrate, has been steadily 
shining a Hght, sometimes dimmed by external cir- 
cumstances, at others effulgent, but undying and 
steady — a light shining not only over India, but per- 
meating the whole thought-world with its power, 
silent, gentle, yet omnipotent; unperceived like the 
dew that falls in the evening unseen and unnoticed, 
yet bringing into bloom the fairest of roses — ^this 
light has been the thought of the Upanishads, the 
philosophy of the Vedanta. Nobody knows when it 
first came to flourish on the soil of India. Guess- 
works have been vain. The guesses, especially of the 
Western writers, have been so conflicting that no 
certain date can be ascribed to them. But we Hindus, 
from the spiritual standpoint, do not admit that they 
had any origin. This Vedanta, the philosophy of the 
Upanishads, I would make bold to state, has been the 
first as well as the final thought that on the spiritual 
plane has ever been vouchsafed to man. From this 
light have been going westward and eastward, from 
time to time, waves from the ocean of Vedanta. In 

283 



284 J NANA YOGA 

the days of yore it traveled westward and gave its 
impetus to the minds of the Greeks, either in Athens, 
or in Alexandria, or in Antioch. The Sankhya sys- 
tem clearly must have made its mark on the minds of 
the ancient Greeks: and the Sankhya, and all other 
systems in India, had that one authority, the Upani- 
shads, the Vedanta. In India, too, the one authority, 
the basis of all religious and philosophical systems, 
has yet been the Upanishads, the Vedanta. Whether 
you are a monist, or a qualified monist: an Advaitin 
or Dvaitin, or whatever you may call yourself, there 
stand behind you as your authority, your Shdstras, 
your Scriptures, the Upanishads. Whatever system 
in India does not obey the Upanishads cannot be 
called orthodox, and even the systems of the Jains 
and the Buddhists have been rejected from the soil 
of India only because they did not bear allegiance to 
the Upanishads. Thus, the Vedanta, whether we 
know it or not, has penetrated all the sects in India, 
and what we call Hinduism, this mighty banyan with 
its immense, almost infinite ramifications, has been 
throughout inter-penetrated by the influence of the 
Vedanta. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we 
think the Vedanta, we live in the Vedanta, we breathe 
the Vedanta, and we die in the Vedanta, and every 
Hindu does that. To preach Vedanta in the land of 
India, and before an Indian audience, seems there- 
fore to be an anomaly. But it is the one thing that 
has got to be preached, and it is the necessity of 
the age that it shall be preached. As I have just told 
you, all the Indian sects must bear allegiance to the 
Upanishads, but among these sects, there are many 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 285 

apparent contradictions. Many times the great sages 
of yore could not themselves understand the underly- 
ing harmony of the Upanishads. Many times even 
sages quarreled, and so much so that at times it 
became a proverb : "They are not sages who do not 
differ." But the time requires that a better inter- 
pretation should be given to this underlying harmony 
of the Upanishadic texts, whether they are dualistic, 
non-dualistic, or quasi-dualistic. It has to be shown 
before the world at large, and this work is necessary 
as much in India as outside of India, and I, through 
the grace of God, had the great good fortune to sit 
at the feet of one whose whole life was such an inter- 
pretation — whose life, a thousandfold more than 
whose teaching, was a living commentary on the texts 
of the Upanishads, was in fact, the spirit of the 
Upanishads living in a human form. Perhaps, I 
have got a little of that harmony, I do not know 
whether I shall be able to express it or not, but this 
is my attempt, my mission in life, to show that the 
Vedantic schools are not contradictory, that they all 
necessitate each other, and one, as it were, is the 
stepping-stone to the other, until the goal, the Advaita, 
is reached (the Tat Tvam asi). There was a time 
in India when the Karma Kanda had its sway. There 
have been many grand ideals, no doubt, in that por- 
tion of the Vedas. Some of our present daily worship 
is still according to the precepts of the Karma Kanda. 
But with all that, the Karma Kanda of the Vedas has 
almost disappeared from India. Very little of our life 
at the present day is bound or regulated by the orders 
of the Karma Kanda of the Vedas. In our ordinary 



286 J NANA YOGA 

lives, we are mostly Paurdnics or Tantrics, and even 
where some Vedic texts are used by the Brahmins of 
India, the adjustment of the texts is not according 
to the Vedas mostly, but according to the Tdntras or 
the Purdnas. As such, to call ourselves Vaidics in 
the sense of following the Karma Kdnda of the Vedas, 
I do not think, would be proper. But the other fact 
stands that we are all of us Vedantins. The people 
who call themselves Hindus, had better be called 
Vedantins, and as I have shown you just now, under 
that one name Vaiddntika come all our various sects, 
either dualist or non-dualist. 

The sects that are at the present time in India, may 
in general be divided into the two great classes 
of dualists and monists. The little differences, which 
some of these sects insist upon, and upon the authori- 
ty of which they want to take new names, as pure 
Advaitins or qualified Advaitins, and so forth, do not 
matter much. As a classification, either they are 
dualists or monists, and of the sects existing at the 
present time, some are very new, and others seem to 
be reproductions of very ancient sects. The one 
class I would represent by the life and philosophy 
of Ramanuja, and the other by Sankaracharya. 
Ramanuja is the leading dualistic philosopher of later 
India, whom all the other dualistic sects have fol- 
lowed directly or indirectly, both in the substance of 
their teaching, as well as in the organization of their 
sects, even down to some of the most minute points. 
You will be astonished if you compare Ramanuja and 
his works with the other dualistic Vaishnava sects in 
India, to find how much they resemble each other in 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 287 

organization, teaching and method. There has been 
the great southern preacher, Madhva Muni, and fol- 
lowing him our great Chaitanya of Bengal taking up 
the philosophy of the Madhvas, and preaching it in 
Bengal. There have been some other sects in South- 
ern India also, as the qualified dualistic Shivites. The 
Shivites in most parts of India are Advaitins, except 
in some portions of Southern India and in Ceylon. 
But they also only substitute Shiva for Vishnu, and 
are Ramanujists in every sense of the term except in 
the doctrine of the soul. The followers of Ramanuja 
hold that the soul is anu, like a particle, very small, 
and the followers of Sankaracharya hold that it is 
vibhu, omnipresent. There have been several non- 
dualistic sects. It seems that there have been sects 
in ancient times which Sankara's movement entirely 
swallowed up and assimilated. In modern times the 
Advaitins have all ranged themselves under San- 
karacharya; and he and his disciples have been the 
great preachers of Advaita, both in Southern and in 
Northern India. The influence of Sankaracharya 
did not penetrate much into our country of Bengal, 
or into Cashmere and the Punjab; but in Southern 
India the Smdrtas are all followers of Sankaracharya, 
and with Benares as the centre, his influence is simply 
immense even in many parts of Northern India. 

Now, both Sankara and Ramanuja laid aside all 
claim to originality. Ramanuja expressly tells us 
that he is only following the great commentary of 
Bodhayana. He takes it up and makes of it an 
abstract, and that is what we have to-day. Ramanuja 
is very plain on the point, and he tells us that he is 



288 J NANA YOGA 

taking the ideas, and sometimes even passages out of 
this ancient commentator and condensing them into 
the present Ramanuja Bhashya. It seems that San- 
karacharya was also doing the same. There are a 
few places in his Bhashya, which mention older com- 
mentaries; and when we know that his Guru and his 
Guru's Guru had been Vedantins of the same school 
as himself, sometimes even more thoroughgoing, 
bolder even than Sankara himself on certain points, 
it seems pretty plain that he also was not preaching 
anything very original, and that even in his Bhashya 
he himself had been doing the same work that Rama- 
nuja did with Bodhayana, but from what Bhashya 
cannot be discovered at the present time. All these 
Darsanas (schools of philosophy) that you have seen, 
or ever heard of, are based upon Upanishadic authori- 
ty. Whenever they quote a Sruti .(scriptural lext), 
they mean the Upanishads. They are always quoting 
the Upanishads. Following the Upanishads there 
came other philosophies in India, but every one of 
them failed in getting that hold upon India which 
the philosophy of Vyasa obtained. The philosophy of 
Vyasa is a development out of an older one, the 
Sankhya; and every philosophy and every system in 
India — and possibly throughout the world — owes 
much to Kapila, the great founder of the Sankhya 
system, perhaps the greatest name in the history of 
India in psychological and philosophical lines. The 
influence of Kapila is everywhere throughout the 
world. Wherever there is a recognized system of 
thought, there you can trace his influence; it may be 
thousands of years back, but yet he stands there, the 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 289 

shining, glorious, wonderful Kapila. His psychology 
and a good deal of his philosophy have been accepted 
by all the different sects of India with but very slight 
differences. In our own country, our Naiyayika phil- 
osophers could not make much impression on the 
philosophical world of India. They were too busy 
with little species and genera and that most cumber- 
some terminology, which is a life's work to study. 
They were very busy also with logic, and left philoso- 
phy to the Vedantins, but every one of the Indian 
philosophic sects in modern times has adopted the 
logical terminology of the Naiyayikas of Bengal. The 
philosophy of Vyasa as embodied in the Vyasa Sutras 
is firm-seated, and has attained the permanence of that 
which it intended to present to men, the orthodox and 
Vedantic side of philosophy. Reason was entirely 
subordinated to the Srutis and as Sankaracharya 
declares, Vyasa did not care to reason at all. His 
idea in writing the Sutras was just to bring together 
with one thread and make a garland of the flowers of 
Vedantic texts. His Sutras are admitted so far as 
they are subordinate to the authority of the Upani- 
shads and no further. And as I have said, all the 
sects of India now hold these Vyasa Sutras to be the 
great authority, and every new sect in India starts 
with a fresh commentary on the Vyasa Sutras accord- 
ing to its light. The difference between some of 
these commentators is often very great, giving rise 
to not a little text-torturing. The Vyasa Sutras how- 
ever have got the place of authority in India to-day, 
and no one can expect to found a new sect until he 
can write a fresh commentary on them. 



290 J NANA YOGA 

Next in authority is the celebrated Bhagavad Gita. 
The great glory of Sankaracharya is his preaching of 
the Gita. It is one of the greatest works that this 
great man did among the many noble works of his 
noble life — the preaching of the Gita and the writing 
of a most beautiful commentary on it. And he has 
been followed by every founder of an orthodox sect in 
India, and they have each written a commentary on 
this Gita. 

The Upanishads are many in number, by some said 
to be one hundred and eight; others declare them to 
be still more numerous. Those which on the face of 
them bear the evidence of genuineness have been taken 
up by the great Teachers and commented upon, 
especially those upon which Sankara, and later Rama- 
nuja wrote commentaries. There are one or two 
more ideas with regard to the Upanishads which I 
want to bring to your notice ; for these are an ocean of 
knowledge, and to talk about the Upanishads even by 
an incompetent person like myself, takes years, and 
not one lecture only. I want therefore, to bring to 
your notice one or two of the more important points 
in the study of the Upanishads. In the first place, 
they are the most marvellous poems in the world. If 
you read the Samhita portion of the Vedas, you now 
and then find passages of most marvellous beauty. 
For instance, the famous Sloka which describes chaos 
— "When darkness was hidden in darkness." One 
reads and feels the wonderful sublimity of the poetry. 
Do you mark this, that outside of India, and inside of 
India also, there have been attempts at painting the 
sublime. But outside it has always been the sublime 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 29I 

as seen in the external world, the infinite of matter, 
or of space. When Milton or Dante, or any other 
great European poet, either ancient or modern, seeks 
to paint a picture of the infinite, he tries to soar out- 
side, to make you feel the infinite through the external. 
That attempt has been made in India also. You find 
in the Samhitas, the infinite of enumeration, the infinite 
of extension, most marvellously painted and placed 
before the readers, as has been done nowhere else. 
Mark that one sentence : ''When darkness was hidden 
in darkness," and now mark the description of dark- 
ness by three poets. Take your own Kalidasa — 
"Darkness which can be penetrated with the point of 
a needle"; Milton — "No light but rather darkness 
visible" ; but here — "Darkness was covering darkness," 
"Darkness was hidden in darkness." We who live in 
the Tropics can understand it, the sudden outburst of 
the monsoon, when in a moment, the horizon becomes 
darkened, and the sky becomes covered with more and 
more rolling black clouds, and these again in denser 
blackness until it is literally "Darkness hidden in dark- 
ness." In India as everywhere else, attempts at find- 
ing the solution of the great problems of life have 
first been made through the external world. Just as 
the Greek mind, or the modern European mind tries 
to find the solution of life and of all the sacred prob- 
lems of being by searching into the external world, 
so did our own forefathers ; and just as the Europeans 
failed, they failed also. But the Westerners never 
made a move more, they remained there; they failed 
in the search for the solution of the great problems of 
life and death in the external world, and there they 
remained stranded; but our forefathers were bolder 



292 JNANA YOGA 

and declared the utter helplessness of the senses to 
find out the solution. Nowhere else was the fact 
better put than in the same Upanishad — ''From 
whence the word comes back reflected by the mind." 
There are various sentences which declared the utter 
helplessness of the senses ; but they did not stop there, 
they fell back upon the internal nature of man, they 
sought to get the answer from their own souls, they 
became introspective; they gave up exploring external 
nature as a failure, as nothing could be done there. 
No hope, no answer could be found; they discovered 
that dull dead matter would not give them truth, and 
they fell back upon the shining soul of man, and there 
the answer was found. 

"Know this Atman," they declared ; "give up all 
vain words and hear no other." In the Atman they 
found the solution — the greatest of all dtmans, the 
God, the Lord of this Universe, His relation to the 
atman of man, our duty to Him, and through that our 
relation to each other. And herein you find the most 
sublime poetry in this world. No more is the attempt 
made to paint this Atman in the language of matter. 
Nay, they have even given up all positive language. 
No more do they attempt to find in the senses the 
idea of the Infinite, no more is there an external, dull, 
dead, material, spatial, sensuous Infinite; but instead 
of that, comes something which is as fine as that say- 
ing about darkness, and what poetry in the world can 
be more sublime than this? 

"There the sun cannot illumine, nor the moon, nor 
the stars, a flash of lightning cannot illumine the 
place ; what to speak of this mortal fire ?" 

Such poetry you find nowhere else. Take that most 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 293 

marvellous Upanishad, the Katha. What wonderful 
finish, what most remarkable art are displayed in that 
poem! How wonderfully it opens, with that high- 
minded boy, whose father devoted him to Yama 
(Death), and how that most wondrous of all teachers, 
Death himself, unfolds to him the great lessons of life 
and death. And what was the quest of that fearless 
youth? To know the secret of death. 

The second point that I want you to remember is 
the perfectly impersonal character of the Upanishads. 
Although we find many names, and many speakers, 
and many teachers in the Upanishads, not one of them 
stands as an authority for the Upanishads, not one 
verse is based upon the life of any one of them. They 
are simply figures like shadows moving in the back- 
ground, imfelt, unseen, unrealized, but the real force 
is in the marvellous, the brilliant, the effulgent texts 
of the Upanishads, which are perfectly impersonal. 
If Yagnavalkya never lived, or died, it would not mat- 
ter, the texts are there. And yet the teachings are 
against no personality; they are broad and expansive 
enough to embrace all the personalities that the world 
has yet produced, and all that are to be produced. 
Nothing is said against the worship of persons, or 
Avataras, or sages. On the other hand, all worship 
is upheld by the Upanishads. It is a most marvellous 
idea, like the God it preaches, the impersonal idea of 
the Upanishads. At the same time, for the sage, the 
thinker, the philosopher, for the rationalist, it is as 
impersonal as any modern scientist can wish. And 
these are our Scriptures. You must remember that 
what the Bible is to the Christians, what the Qu'ran 



294 J NANA YOGA 

is to the Mohammedans, what the Tripitaka is to the 
Buddhists, what the Zend Avesta is to the Parsis, 
these Upanishads are to us. These, and nothing but 
these are our Scriptures. The Purdnas, the Tantras, 
and all the other books, even the Vydsa Sutras, are 
of secondary, or tertiary authority, but primary are 
the Vedas. Manu and the Purdnas, and all the other 
books are to be taken so far as they agree with the 
authority of the Upanishads, and when they disagree 
they are to be rejected without mercy. This we 
ought to remember always. The Upanishads are 
the words of the Rishis, our forefathers, and you 
have to believe them if you want to be a Hindu. 
You may even believe the most peculiar ideas about 
the God-head, but if you deny the authority of the 
Vedas, you are a Ndstika, an atheist. The Scrip- 
tures of other religions are all Purdnas and not Scrip- 
tures, because they describe the history of the deluge, 
and the history of the kings and reigning families, 
and record the lives of great men, and so on. This 
is the work of the Purdnas, and so far as they agree 
with the Vedas, very good, but when they do not 
agree, they are not to be accepted. So with the 
QuVan, there are many moral teachings in it and so 
far as they agree with the Vedas, they have the authori- 
ty of the Purdnas, but no more. The idea is that the 
Vedas were never written, that they never came into 
existence. I was told once by a Christian missionary 
that their Scriptures have historical character and 
therefore are true. To which I replied: "Mine have 
no historical character, and therefore they are true; 
yours being historical were evidently made by some 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 295 

man the other day. Yours are man-made but mine 
are not; their non-historical character is in their 
favor." These are the relations of the Vedas to the 
other Scriptures of the world. 

We now return to the teachings of the Upanishads. 
Various texts are there. Some are entirely dualistic. 
There are certain doctrines which are agreed to by all 
the different sects in India. First, there is the doc- 
trine of Samsdra, or reincarnation of the soul. Sec- 
ondly, they all agree in their psychology ; there is the 
body, behind that what is called the Sukshma Sarira 
(the mind), and behind that is the Jiva (the soul). 
The great difference between Western and Indian 
psychology is that in the former the mind is the soul ; 
in the latter it is not. The antahkarana, the internal 
instrument, as the mind is called, is only an instrument, 
in the hands of the Jiva, through which the Jiva works 
on the body, or on the external world. Here Hindus 
all agree, and they all also agree that this Jiva (or 
Atman, or Jivdtman as it is called by different sects) 
is eternal, without beginning or end ; and that it goes 
from birth to birth until it gets final release. They 
all agree in this, and they also all agree in one vital 
point which marks most characteristically, most prom- 
inently, most completely, the difference between the 
Indian and the Western mind, and it is this — that 
everything is in the soul. There is no inspiration 
properly speaking, but rather expiration. All power, 
all purity, and all greatness — everything is in the soul.^ 

The Yogi would tell you that the Siddhis (powers) 
that he is striving to attain to, are not to be attained, 
in the proper sense of the word, but are already in 



296 J NANA YOGA 

the soul ; the work is to make them manifest. Patan- 
jaH, for instance, would tell you that even in the low- 
est worm that crawls under your feet, are already 
existing all the eightfold powers of the Yogi. The 
difference has been made by the body ; the powers are 
there but they will have to be brought out through the 
medium of a suitable body. Patau jali gives the cele- 
brated example of the cultivator bringing water into 
his field from a huge tank somewhere. The tank is 
already filled and the water would flood his land in a 
moment, only there is a wall between the tank and his 
field. As soon as the barrier is broken, in rushes the 
water by its own power and force. Power and puri- 
ty and perfection are in the soul already, but they are 
hidden by this Avarana— this veil — that has been cast 
over them. Once the veil is removed, the soul mani- 
fests its powers which are its real nature. This, you 
ought to remember, is the fundamental difference 
between Eastern and Western thought. When you 
find people teaching such awful doctrines as that we 
are all born sinners always remember that if we are 
by our very nature sinful, we never can become good. 
How can nature change? If it changes, it contra- 
dicts itself; it is not nature. We ought never to for- 
get this. Here the Dvaitins, the Advaitins, and all 
others in India agree. 

The next point upon which all the sects in India are 
agreed is belief in God. Of course, their ideas of God 
will be different. The dualists believe only in a per- 
sonal God. I want you to understand this word per- 
sonal a little more. It does not mean that God has a 
body, sits on a throne somewhere, and rules this 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 297 

world; but personal means Saguna, ''with qualities." 
There are many descriptions of the personal God. 
This personal God as the Ruler, the Creator, the Pre- 
server, and the Destroyer, of this universe, is believed 
in by all sects. The Advaitins believe something 
more. They believe in a still higher phase of this 
personal God, which is personal-impersonal. No 
adjective can illustrate where there is no qualification, 
and the Advaitin would not give God any qualities 
except the three — Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence — 
Knowledge — Bliss Absolute. That is what Sankara 
did, but in the Upanishads themselves you find that 
they penetrate even further, and say nothing can be 
said except ''Neti, Neti," *'Not this, Not this." 
According to Ramanuja the great modern representa- 
tive of the dualistic system these three entities are 
eternal — God, Soul, and Nature. The souls are eter- 
nal, and they will remain eternally existing, and will 
retain their individuality forever. Your soul will be 
difTerent from my soul through all eternity, says 
Ramanuja, and so will Nature which is an existing 
fact, as much so as the existence of soul, or the exist- 
ence of God — Nature will remain always. And God 
is interpenetrating the essence of the soul. He is the 
Antarayamin (the Soul of our souls). In this sense 
Ramanuja sometimes thinks that God is one with the 
soul, the essence of the soul, and that at the time of 
Pralaya (the end of a cycle, or dissolution of phenom- 
ena), when the whole of Nature becomes what he 
calls Sankocha (contracted), these souls become con- 
tracted, or minute, and remain so for a time. At the 
beginning of the next cycle, they all come out accord- 



298 JNANA YOGA 

ing to their past Karma. Every action that dims the 
inborn, natural purity and perfection of the soul, is a 
bad action ; and every action that causes these to shine 
forth and expand the soul is a good action, says 
Ramanuja. And thus the soul is going on, expanding 
or contracting by its actions, until through the grace 
of God, comes salvation. And that grace comes to all 
souls, says Ramanuja, that are pure, and struggle to 
gain it. 

There is a celebrated verse in the Srutis: "When 
the food is pure then the Sattva becomes pure, when 
the Sattva becomes pure then the smriti (the memory 
of the Lord, or the memory of our own perfection — 
if you are an Advaitin) becomes truer, steadier, and 
absolute." Here arises a great discussion. First of 
all what is this Sattva? We know that according to 
the Sankhya — and it has been admitted by all our sects 
of philosophy — the body is composed of three sorts 
of gunas (materials — ^not qualities). It is the general 
idea that Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are qualities. Not 
at all, they are not qualities but materials of this uni- 
verse, and with dhdra suddhi (pure food), the Sattva 
material becomes pure. The one aim of the Vedanta 
is to get this Sattva. As I have told you, the soul is 
already pure and perfect but, according to the Vedanta, 
it is covered up by Rajas and Tamas particles. The 
Sattva particles are the most luminous, and the efful- 
gence of the soul penetrates through them as easily 
as light through glass. So if the Rajas and Tamas 
particles are eliminated, leaving the Sattva particles 
uncovered, the powers and purity of the soul will 
appear, and make the soul more manifest. Therefore 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 299 

it is necessary to have this Sattva. The text says: 
''When the dhdra becomes pure, etc." Ramanuja 
takes this word dhdra to mean food, and he has made 
it one of the turning points of his philosophy. Not 
only so, but the idea has affected the whole of India, 
and all the different sects. Therefore, it is necessary 
for us to understand what it means, for according to 
Ramanuja, dhdra suddhi is one of the principal fac- 
tors in our life. "What makes food impure?" asks 
Ramanuja. According to him, three sorts of defects 
make food impure — first, jdti, that is, the very nature 
of the class to which the food belongs, as onion, gar- 
lic and so on. The next is dsraya^ or the person from 
whom the food comes. A wicked person is dsraya 
and food coming from him will make you impure. I 
myself have seen many great sages in India following 
strictly that advice all their lives. The third defect 
is nimiita dosha, impurity in the food itself, as hairs 
dirt, etc. If only that food be taken from which these 
three defects have been removed, that will make 
Sattva suddhi, will purify the Sattva. Religion then 
would seem to be a very easy task! But now comes 
Sankaracharya, who says this word dhara does not 
mean pure food, but pure thought collected in the 
mind ; when the mind becomes pure, the sattva becomes 
pure and not before that. You may eat what you 
like. If food alone would purify the sattva, then feed 
a monkey with milk and rice all its life, would it 
become a great Yogif As has been said if it is by 
bathing much one goes to heaven, then the fishes 
would get there first. If by eating vegetables a man 
gets to heaven, the cows and the deer will get there 



300 JNANA YOGA 

before him. But what is the solution? Both are 
necessary. Of course, the interpretation that San- 
karacharya gives to the text is the fundamental and 
more important one. But pure food no doubt, helps 
pure thought, it has an intimate connection; both 
ideas ought to be acted upon. The defect is that many 
have forgotten the advice of Sankaracharya and have 
taken only the "pure food" meaning of dhara. 

According to the dualistic sects of India, the indi- 
vidual souls remain as individuals throughout, and God 
is the Creator of the universe out of pre-existing mate- 
rial. He is the efficient cause. According to the Ad- 
vaitins, on the other hand, God is both the material and 
the efficient cause of the universe. He is not only the 
Creator of the universe, but He creates it out of 
Himself. The one sect of Advaitins that you see in 
modern India is composed of the followers of Sankara. 
According to Sankara, God is both the material and 
the efficient cause through Maya, but not in reality. 
God has not become this universe, but the universe 
appears because God is its Background. This is one 
of the highest points to understand of Advaitic Vedan- 
ta, this idea of Mdyd. I am afraid I have not time 
now to discuss this one most difficult point in our 
philosophy. Those of you who are acquainted with 
Western philosophy will find something very similar 
in Kant. But I must warn you, those of you, who 
have studied Professor Max Muller's writings on 
Kant, that there is one idea most misleading. It was 
Sankara who first found out the idea of the identity 
of time, space, and causation, with Mdyd, and I had 
the good fortune to find one or two passages in San- 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 3OI 

kara's commentaries and send them to my friend the 
Professor. So even that idea was to be found in India. 
Now this is a pecuHar theory — this Maya theory of 
the Advaita Vedantins. The Brahman is all that 
exists, but differentiation has been caused by this 
Maya. Unity, the one Brahman, is the ultimate, the 
goal, and herein is an endless dissension again between 
Indian and Western thought. India has thrown this 
challenge to the world for thousands of years, and 
the challenge has been taken up by different nations 
and the result is that they have all succumbed and 
you live. This is the challenge, that this world is a 
delusion, that it is all Maya, that whether you eat off 
of the ground with your fingers, or dine from golden 
plates, whether you live in palaces or hovels; are the 
mightest monarchs or the poorest beggars, death is 
the one result; it is all the same, all Maya. That is 
the old Indian theme, and again and again nations 
are springing up trying to unsay it, to disprove it, 
becoming great, enjoyment their watchword, power in 
their hands, and they use that power to the utmost, 
enjoy to the utmost, and the next moment they die. 
We stand forever because we see that everything is 
Maya. The children of Maya live forever, but chil- 
dren of enjoyment die. 

Here is again another great difference. Just as you 
find in German philosophy the attempts of Hegel and 
Schopenhauer you will find the very same ideas coming 
in ancient India. Fortunately for us Hegelianism 
was nipped in the bud, and not allowed to sprout out 
and cast its baneful shoot over this mother-land of 
ours. Hegel's one idea is that the One, the Absolute, 



302 J NANA YOGA 

is only chaos, and that the individualized form is the 
greater. The world is greater than the non- world, 
Samsdra is greater than Salvation. That is the one 
idea, and the more you plunge into this Samsdra, the 
more your soul is covered with the workings of life, 
the better you are. They say: "Do you not see how 
we build houses, cleanse the streets, enjoy the senses?" 
Aye, but behind that, behind every bit of that enjoy- 
ment, may lurk rancor, misery, and horror. On the 
other hand, our philosophers have from the very first 
declared that every manifestation, what is called evo- 
lution, is a vain attempt of the Unmanifested to 
manifest Itself. After making the attempt for a time, 
man finds out it is vain, and gives it up. This is 
Vairdgyam, or renunciation, and is the very beginning 
of religion. How can religion or morality begin with- 
out renunciation? The Alpha and Omega is renun- 
ciation. "Give up," say the Vedas, "give up." That 
is the one way, give up. 

"Neither through wealth, nor through progeny, but 
by renunciation alone immortality is to be reached." 
That is the dictate of the Indian Scriptures. Of 
course, there have been great givers up of the world 
even sitting on thrones, but even Janaka himself had 
to renounce; who was a greater renouncer than he? 
But in modern times we all want to be called Janakas. 
They are all Janakas, all over India, but unfortu- 
nately I find them only *Janakas of children, unclad, 
ill-fed, miserable children. That is all they are of 
Janaka, not with shining, God-like thoughts as the old 
Janaka was. These are our modern Janakas! If 

* Janaka means also "progenitor." 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 303 

you can give up, you will have religion. If you can- 
not, you may read all the books that are in the world, 
from East to West, swallow all the libraries, and 
become the greatest of pandits, but with all that there 
will be no spirituality. "Through renunciation alone 
immortality is to be reached." It is the power, the 
great power, that cares not even for the universe. 
Renunciation, that is the flag, the banner of India, 
floating out to the world, the one undying thought 
which India sends again and again as a warning to 
dying races, as a warning to all tyranny, as a warning 
to wickedness in the world. Aye, Hindus, let not your 
hold of that banner go ! Hold it aloft ! Even if you 
are weak, and cannot renounce the world, try not to 
be hypocrites, torturing texts, and making specious 
arguments. Do not do that, but admit you are weak. 
For the idea is great, that of renunciation. What 
matters if millions fail in the attempt, if one, if two, 
if ten return victorious ? Blessed be the millions that 
died; their blood has bought the victory. This 
renunciation is the one ideal of nearly all the different 
Vedic sects. We want orthodoxy, even the hideous- 
ly orthodox, even those who smother themselves with 
ashes, even those who stand with their hands uplifted. 
Aye, we want them, unnatural though they be, as a 
warning to the race, as examples of the idea of giving 
up. They are to be preferred to the effeminate crav- 
ings for Western luxuries that are creeping into 
India; and mistaken as they are, even these crude 
ideas of renunciation are infinitely better than material- 
ism, with its gross and degenerating tendencies. We 
want to have renunciation. It has conquered India in 



304 J NANA YOGA 

days of yore, it has still to conquer India. Still it 
stands greatest and highest of Indian ideals — Renun- 
ciation. The land of Buddha, the land of Ramanuja, 
of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the land of renuncia- 
tion, the land where from the days of yore they 
preached against Karma Kdnda, and where even to-day 
there are hundreds who have given up everything, 
passed everything away and became Jivan Muktds — 
shall that land give up its ideals? Certainly not. 
There may be people whose brains have become turned 
with luxurious Western ideals. There may be thou- 
sands, and hundreds of thousands, w^ho have drunk 
deep of this curse of the world — enjoyment— into 
whose brains have come the allurements of the senses, 
yet for all that there will be other thousands in this 
Motherland of ours to whom religion will be a reality, 
and who will be ready to give up if need be, without 
counting the cost. 

Another ideal very common in all our sects, I want 
to place before you. It also is a vast subject. This 
idea is unique in India, that is that religion is to be 
realized. "This Atman is not to be reached by too 
much talking, nor is it to be reached by the power of 
intellect." Nay, ours are the only Scriptures in the 
world that declare that not even by the study of the 
Scriptures themselves is the Atman to be realized. 
This power of realization comes from the teacher unto 
the disciple. When this insight com.es to the disciple 
everything is cleared up and realization comes. 

One more idea, what is a Guru? Let us go back to 
the Srutis: "He who knows the secret of the Vedas," 
not book-worms, not grammarians, not pandits in gen- 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 305 

eral, but he who knows the meaning of the Scriptures, 
he alone is the Guru. "An ass laden with a mass of 
sandalwood knows only the weight of the wood, but 
not its precious qualities." So are these pandits 
(scholars) ; we do not want these to teach religion. 
What can they teach, if they have no realization? 
When I was a boy here in this city of Calcutta, I 
used to go from place to place in search of religion, 
and everywhere after hearing very great speakers I 
asked : "Have you seen God ?' ' The men were all 
taken aback at the idea of seeing God, and the only 
man who told me, "I have," was Sri Ramakrishna 
Paramahamsa, and not only so, but he said : "I will put 
you in the way of seeing Him too." Not a man who 
can twist and torture texts, is fit to be a teacher. 
"Different ways of throwing out words, different ways 
of explaining texts of the Scriptures, these are for the 
enjoyment of the learned, not for freedom." He who 
knows the secret of the Srutis, the sinless, and he 
who does not want to make money by teaching — ^he 
is the Shanta (saint), the Sddhu (Holy one), who 
comes as the Spring, which brings the leaves and 
fruits to various plants but does not ask anything 
from the plant, for its very nature is to do good. It 
does good and that is all Such is the Guru. "Who 
has himself crossed this ocean of life, and without any 
idea of gain to himself helps others to cross the ocean 
also ;" this is the Guru, and mark that none else can be 
a Guru. As for others : "Themselves steeped in dark- 
ness, but in the pride of their hearts thinking they 
know everything, do not stop even there, but want to 
help others, and, blind leading the blind, both fall into 



306 J NANA YOGA 

the ditch." Thus say your Vedas. You are Vedan- 
tins, you are very orthodox, are you not? Aye, what 
I want to do is to make you more orthodox. The 
more really orthodox you are the more sensible, and 
the more you think of modern orthodoxy the more 
foolish you are. Go back to your old orthodoxy, for 
in those days every sound that came from these books, 
every pulsation, was out of a strong, steady, and 
sincere heart; every note was true. After that came 
degradation in art, in science, in religion, in every- 
thing, national degradation. Go back, go back, to 
the old days, when there was strength and vitality. 
Be strong once more, drink deep out of this fountain 
of yore, for that is the only condition of life in India. 
It has been a hard nut to crack all over the world 
that the idea of individuality which we have to-day 
is an illusion. Tell a man that he is not an individual 
in the ordinary sense of the word and forthwith he 
becomes afraid that his individuality (whatever that 
may be) will be lost. But the Advaitin says there 
never has been a finite individuality; you as a finite 
being have been changing every moment of your life. 
You have been a child, and thought in one way, you 
are a man, and think another way, you will be an old 
man, and will think yet another way. Everybody is 
thus changing. If so, where is your individuality? 
Certainly not in the body, nor in the mind, nor in 
thought. And beyond that is the Atman, and says the 
Advaitin : "This Atman is the Brahman Itself. There 
cannot be two Infinites. There is only One Individual 
and It is Infinite. In plain words, we are rational 
beings, and we want to reason. And what is rea- 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 307 

son? More or less of classification, until you cannot 
go any farther. And the finite can only find its ulti- 
mate rest when it is classified into the Infinite. Go 
on taking up a finite and finding its reasons, and you 
will find rest nowhere until you reach the ultimate or 
Infinite; and that Infinite says the Advaitin, is what 
alone exists. Everything else is Maya, everything 
else has no real existence. Whatever of existence is 
in any material thing is this Brahman; we are this 
Brahman, and name, shape, and everything else is 
Maya. Take off the name and form and you and I 
are all one. But we have to guard against the misuse 
of the word "I." Generally people say: ''If I am 
the Brahman why cannot I do this or that?" But 
they are using the word "I" in two different senses. 
You think you are a body, or a man, and as soon as 
you do this you are bound ; no more are you Brahman, 
the Self, Who wants nothing. Whose light is within. 
All His pleasure and bliss are within, perfectly satis- 
fied with Himself He wants nothing, expects nothing, 
is perfectly fearless, perfectly free. That is Brahman. 
That is the meaning of the real 'T." In that we are 
all one. 

Now this seems to be the great point of difference 
between the dualist and the Advaitin. You find even 
great commentators, like Sankaracharya, making 
meanings of texts, which, to my mind, sometimes do 
not seem to be justified. Sometimes you find Rama- 
nuja dealing with texts in a way that is not very 
clear. The idea has been even among our pandits that 
only one of these views can be true; the rest mxust be 
false. Yet they find in their Srutis the most wonderful 



308 JNANA YOGA 

idea that India has to give to the world, "Ekam sat 
vipra bahudhd vadanti," "That which exists is One, 
sages call it by various names." That has been the 
theme, and the working out of the whole of this life- 
problem of the nation is the working out of that 
theme: "That which exists is One, sages call it by 
various names." Yet, except a very few spiritual 
men in India, we all forget this. We forget this 
great idea, and you will find there are those among 
the pandits who are of opinion that only the Advaitin 
is right, or that only the Visishtadvaitin is right, or that 
only the Dvaitin can have the Truth. But a few years 
ago there came to India one whose life was the explana- 
tion of all these differences, whose life was the work- 
ing out of the harmony that is the background of all 
the different sects of India. I mean Sri Ramakrishna 
Paramahamsa. It is his life that explains that all of 
these are necessary ; that dualism is the natural idea of 
the senses. As long as we are bound by the senses 
we are bound to see a God who is personal, and noth- 
ing but personal ; we are bound to see the world as it 
appears. Just as says Ramanuja: "As long as you 
think you are a body, or think you are a mind, or 
think you are a Jiva, every act of perception will give 
you the three, God and Nature and something as see- 
ing both." But yet even the idea of the body grows 
dimmer where the mind itself becomes finer and finer, 
until it has almost all disappeared; and when all the 
different things that bind us down to this body-life, 
all the things that make us fear, that make us weak, 
have disappeared, then comes the realization of One- 
ness. The Bhagavad Gitd says: "Even in this life 



VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 309 

they have conquered heaven, whose minds are firmly 
fixed on this sameness of everything ; for God is pure, 
and the same to all; therefore, such are said to be 
living in God." And again: "Thus seeing the same 
Lord everywhere he, the sage, does not hurt the Self 
by the self and thus goes to the highest goal." 



XVII 

VEDANTA 

(Lecture delivered at Lahore, India.) 

Two worlds there are in which we live, one the 
external, the other the internal. Human progress has 
been, from time immemorial, along parallel lines in 
both these worlds. The search began in the external, 
and man at first sought to get answers for all the 
deep problems from external nature. He wanted to 
satisfy his thirst for the beautiful and the sublime 
from all that surrounded him; he wanted to express 
himself and all that was within him in the language 
of the concrete; and grand indeed were the answers 
— most marvellous ideas of God and worship, most 
rapturous expressions of the beautiful, most sublime 
conceptions came from the external world. But the 
other, opening out for humanity later, laid out before 
him a universe yet sublimer, yet more beautiful, and 
infinitely more expansive. In the Karma Kanda 
(doctrines and ceremonies) portion of the Vedas we 
find most Wonderful ideas about an over-ruling Creator, 
Preserver and Destroyer of this universe presented 
before us in language which is at times soul-stirring. 
Most of you, perhaps, remember that wonderful pas- 
sage in the Rig Veda Samhita, where you get a descrip- 

310 



VEDANTA 311 

tion of chaos, possibly the subHmest that has ever been 
attempted by man. In spite of all this, we find it is 
only a painting of the sublime external, that it is still 
gross, that something of matter yet clings to it. It 
is only the expression of the Infinite in the language 
of matter, in the language of the finite, it is the infinite 
of the muscles and not of the mind. It is the infinite 
of space and not of thought. Therefore in the second 
portion of the Vedas, or J nana Kanda (philosophy), 
we find the method of procedure altogether different. 
The first attempt was to search out from external 
nature the truths of the universe; to get the solution 
of all the deep problems of life from the material 
world. There arose the cry — ''When a man dies, 
what becomes of him ? Some say that he exists, others 
that he is gone, say, O king of Death, what is truth?" 
The Indian mind has discovered what was to be got 
from the external world, but it did not feel satisfied 
with that; it wanted to search more deeply, to dig in 
its own interior, to seek from its own soul, and the 
answer came. 

Upanishads, or Vedanta, or Aranyakas, is the name 
of this portion of the Vedas. Here we perceive at once 
that religion has got rid of all external formalities, 
that spiritual things are told not in the language of 
matter, but that spirituality is preached in the language 
of the spirit, the superfine in the language of the super- 
fine. No more is any grossness apparent in it, no 
more is there any compromise with things that concern 
us. Bold, brave beyond our conception at the present 
day, stand the giant minds of the sages of the Upan- 
ishads, declaring the noblest truths that have been 



312 J NANA YOGA 

preached unto humanity, without compromise, without 
fear. This, my countrymen, I want to lay before you. 

Even the Jndna Kanda of the Vedas is a vast ocean ; 
many lives are necessary to understand even a little 
of it. Truly has it been said by Rdmdnuja that 
the Vedanta is the head, the shoulders, the crested 
form of the Vedas, and surely enough the Upanishads 
that teach it have become the Scriptures of modern 
India. The Hindus have the greatest respect for the 
Karma Kanda of the Vedas, but for all practical pur- 
poses we know that for ages Shruti (sacred revela- 
tion) has meant the Upanishads and the Upanishads 
alone. We know that all our great philosophers, either 
Vyasa or Patanjali, or Gautama, or even the great 
father of all philosophy, the celebrated Kapila himself, 
when ever they wanted an authority for what they 
wrote, every one of them drew it from the Upanishads 
and from no other source, for therein are the truths 
that remain forever. 

There are truths that are true only in a certain line, 
in a certain direction, under certain circumstances and 
for certain times, those that are founded on the insti- 
tutions of the time. There are other truths that are 
based on the nature of man himself that must endure 
as long as man himself endures. These are the truths 
that alone can be universal, and in spite of all the 
changes that we are sure must have come in India, 
as to our social surroundings, our methods of dress, 
our manner of eating, our modes of worship, these 
universal truths of the Shrutis, the marvellous Vedan- 
tic ideas, stand out in their own sublimity, immovable, 
unvanquishable, deathless and immortal. Yet the 



VEDANTA 313 

germs of all the ideas that are developed in the Upan- 
ishads have been taught already in the Karma Kanda. 
The idea of the cosmos which all sects of Vedantins 
take for granted, the psychology which has formed the 
common basis of all Indian schools of thought had 
there been worked out and presented before the world. 
A few words therefore about the Karma Kanda are 
necessary before we start into the spiritual portion 
of the Vedanta, and I want first to make clear my 
use of the word Vedanta. Unfortunately there is 
a mistake common in modern India, that the word 
Vedanta has reference only to the Advaita system, 
but you must always remember that in modern India 
there are the three Prasthanas (authorities) for man 
to study. First of all there are the Revelations (the 
Shrutis), by which I mean the Upanishads. Secondly, 
among our philosophies, the Sutras of Vyasa have 
always held great prominence on account of their being 
the summation of all the preceding systems of philos- 
ophy; not that these systems are contradictory to one 
another, but the one is based on the other. There is 
a gradual unfolding of the theme which culminates 
in the Sutras of Vyasa; and between the Upanishads 
and the Sutras, which are the systematizing of the 
marvellous truths of the Vedanta, comes the divine 
commentary of the Vedanta Sri Bhagavad Gtfd. The 
Upanishads, the Git a, and the Vyasa Sutras therefore 
have been taken up by every sect in India which has 
wished to claim authority as orthodox, whether 
Dvaitist, or Vaishnavist, or Advaitist it matters little, 
the authorities of each and every one are these three. 
We find that a Sankardchdrya, or a Rdmdnuja, or a 



314 J NANA YOGA 

Madhvdchdrya, or a Chaitanya — any one who wanted to 
propound a new theory — had to take up these three sys- 
tems and write only a new commentary on them. There- 
fore it would be wrong to confine the word Vedanta 
only to one system which has arisen out of the 
Upanishads. All these systems are covered by the 
word Vedanta. The Ramanujist has as much right 
to be called a Vedantist as the Advaitist ; in fact I will 
go a little further and say that what we really mean 
by the word Hindu is the word Vedantist; the word 
Vedantist will express that too. One idea more I wish 
you to note, that these three systems have been current 
in India almost from time immemorial; for you must 
not believe that Sankara was the inventor of the Ad- 
vaitist system; it existed ages before Sankara was 
born ; he was one of its last representatives. So with 
the Ramanujist system, it existed ages before Rdmd- 
nuja appeared, as we already know by the commen- 
taries that were written. This is true of all the 
dualistic systems that have existed side by side with 
the others, and with my little knowledge I have come 
to the conclusion that they do not contradict each 
other. Just as in the case of our six Darsanas (systems 
of philosophy) , we find that they are a grand unfolding 
of the highest principles, the theme beginning far back, 
with the uncertain utterances of early investigators, 
and ending in the trimuphant blast of the Advaita, so 
also in these three main systems we trace the gradual 
working up of the human mind towards higher and 
higher ideals, until everything is merged in that won- 
derful unity which is reached in the Advaita. There- 
fore these three are not contradictory. But I am bound 



VEDANTA 315 

to tell you that this mistake has been committed by 
not a few. We find an Advaitist preacher keeping 
entire those texts which teach Advaitism especially, 
and getting hold of the dualistic or qualified-dualistic 
texts and trying to wrest them into his own meaning ; 
We find dualistic teachers leaving alone those passages 
that are expressly dualistic and getting hold of Advaitic 
texts and trying to force them into a dualistic meaning. 
They have been great men, our Gurus, yet there is such 
a saying as ''even the faults of a Guru must be told." 
I am of the opinion that in this only were these great 
teachers mistaken. We need not go into text torturing, 
we need not go into any sort of religious dishonesty, 
we need not go into any kind of grammatical twaddle, 
we need not go about trying to put our own ideas into 
texts which were never meant for those ideas, but the 
work is plain and it becomes easier once you under- 
stand the marvellous doctrine of Adhikara Vedas. It 
is true that the Upanishads have one theme before 
them. "What is that, knowing which we know every- 
thing else?" In modern language the theme of the 
Upanishads, like the theme of every other knowledge, 
is to find the ultimate unity of things, for you must 
remember that knowledge is nothing but discovering 
unity in the midst of diversity. Each science is based 
upon this; all human knowledge is based upon the 
finding of unity in the midst of diversity ; and if it be 
the task of those small fragments of human knowledge 
which we call our sciences, to find unity in the midst 
of a few different phenomena, the effort becomes stu- 
pendous when the theme before us is to find unity in 
the midst of this marvellously diversified universe, 



3l6 J NANA YOGA 

differing in name and form, differing in matter and 
spirit, differing in everything, each thought differing 
from every other thought, each form differing from 
every other form. Yet, to harmonize these many 
planes, unending lokas — in the midst of this infinite 
variety to find unity, this is the theme of the Upan- 
ishads ; this is the task those great sages set themselves. 
To show a man the Pole Star, one takes the nearest 
star which is bigger than the Pole Star and more 
brilliant, and leads him to fix his mind on that, until 
at last he comes to the Pole Star. This is the task 
before us, and to prove my idea I have simply to 
show you the Upanishads, and you will see it. Nearly 
every chapter begins with dualistic teachings. Later 
on God is taught as some one who is the Creator of 
the Universe, its Preserver, unto whom everything 
goes at last. He is one to be worshipped, the Ruler, 
the Guide of nature, external and internal. One step 
further, and we find the same teacher showing that 
this God is not outside nature, but immanent in nature. 
And at last both ideas are discarded and whatever is 
real is He; there is no difference. That immanent 
One is at last declared to be the same that is in the 
human soul. ''Tat tvam asi Svetaketo." "Svetaketu, 
That thou art." Here is no compromise; here is no 
fear of others' opinions. Truth, bold truth, has been 
taught in bold language, and we need not fear to preach 
the truth in the same bold language to-day, and by 
the grace of God I hope at least to be the one who 
dares to be that bold preacher. 

To go back to our preliminaries. There are first 
two things to be understood, one the psychological 



VEDANTA 317 

aspect common to all the Vedantic schools, and the 
other the cosmological aspect. I will first take up the 
latter. To-day we find wonderful discoveries of mod- 
ern science coming upon us like bolts from the blue, 
opening our eyes to marvels we never dreamed of. 
Man had long since discovered what he calls force. 
It is only the other day that man came to know that 
even in the midst of this variety of forces there is a 
unity. Man has just discovered that what he calls 
heat, magnetism, electricity, and so forth, are all con- 
vertible into that one unit force, whatever you may 
call it. This has been done even in the Samhita; as 
ancient and hoary as the Samhita, is that very idea 
of force I was referring to. All the forces, whether 
called gravitation, or attraction, or repulsion; whether 
expressing themselves as heat, or electricity, or mag- 
netism, are but the variations of that unit energy. 
They may even express themselves as thought, reflected 
from antahkarana, the mentality of man, and the unit 
from which they spring is what is called the Prdna. 
Again what is prdna f Prdna is spandanam, or vibra- 
tion. When all this universe shall have resolved back 
into its primal state, what will become of this infinite 
force? Do they think that it becomes extinct? Of 
course not. If it became extinct, what would be the 
cause of the next wave, because the motion is going 
in wave forms, rising, falling, rising again, falling 
again? Here is the word srishti, which expresses the 
universe. Mark that the word is not "creation." I 
am helpless in talking English, I have to translate 
the Sanskrit words as best I can. It is srishti, "pro- 
jection." Everything becomes finer and finer, and is 



3l8 J NANA YOGA 

resolved back to the primal state from which it sprang, 
and there it remains for a time, quiescent, ready to 
spring forth again. That springing forth is srishti, 
projection. And what becomes of all these forces, the 
prdnas? They are resolved back into the primal 
prdna, and this prdna becomes almost motionless — 
not entirely motionless, but almost motionless — and 
that is what is described in the Vedic hymn, "It vibrated 
without vibrations." There are many difficult texts in 
the Upanishads to understand, especially in the use of 
technical phrases. For instance, the word vayu, to 
move ; many times it means air and many times motion, 
and often people confuse one with the other. We 
have to be careful about this. And what becomes of 
what you call matter ? The forces permeate all matter ; 
they all dissolve into ether, from which they again 
come out ; and the first to come out is akdsa. Whether 
you translate it as ether, or as anything else, this is 
the idea, that this akdsa is the primal form of matter. 
This akdsa vibrates under the action of prdna, and 
when the next srishti is coming up, as the vibration 
becomes quicker, the akdsa is lashed into all those 
wave forms which we call the suns, moons, and 
systems. 

We read again, "Everything in this universe has 
been projected, prdna vibrating, (ejati.) You must 
remark the word ejati, because it comes from ej, to 
vibrate. Nissritam — projected, yadidamkincha jagat 
— whatever is this universe. 

This is a part of the cosmological side. There are 
many details working into it. For instance, how the 
process takes place, how there is first ether, and how 



VEDANTA 319 

from the ether evolve other things, how that ether 
begins to vibrate, and how from that comes vdyu 
(air). But the one idea is here, that it is from the 
finer that the grosser has come. Gross matter is the 
last to emerge and is the most external, and this gross 
matter had the finer matter before it. Yet we see 
that the whole thing has been resolved into two, but 
there is not yet a final unity. There is the unity of 
force, prdna; there is the unity of matter, called akdsa. 
Is there any unity to be found behind them ? Can they 
be melted into one. Our modern science is mute here, 
has not yet found its way out, and if it is finding its way 
out, just as it slowly found the same old prdna and the 
same ancient akdsa, it will also have to seek this unity 
along similar lines. The next unity is the omnipresent, 
impersonal being, known by its old mythological name 
as Brahma, the four-headed Brahma, and psycho- 
logically called Mahat. This is where the two unite. 
What is called your mind is only a bit of this mahat 
caught in the trap of the brain, and the sum total of 
all brains caught in the meshes of mahat is what you 
call samashti (the aggregate, the universal). Analysis 
had to go further; it was not yet complete. In this 
view we were each one of us, as it were, a microcosm, 
and the world taken altogether the macrocosm. But 
whatever is in the vyashti (the particular), we may 
safely conjecture that a similar thing is also in the 
universal. We may feel reasonably sure that if we 
had the power to anaylze our own minds we should find 
in them what we find outside. What is this mind, is 
the question. In modern times, in Western countries, 
as physical science is making rapid progress, as phys- 



320 J NANA YOGA 

iology is step by step conquering stronghold after 
stronghold of old beliefs, people do not know where 
to stand, because to their great despair modern phys- 
iology has identified the mind with the brain at every 
step. But that we in India have known always. It 
was the first proposition the Hindu boy should learn, 
that the mind is matter, only finer. The body is gross, 
and behind the body is what we call the sukshma 
sharira, the fine body or mind. This is also material, 
only finer; but it is not the Atman. I will not trans- 
late this word to you in English, because the idea does 
not exist in Europe, it is untranslatable. The modern 
attempt of German philosophers is to translate the 
word dtman by the word ''self," but until that word 
is universally accepted it is impossible to use it. So, 
call it self or anything, it is our dtman. This dtman 
is the real man behind. It is the dtman that uses the 
material mind as its instrument, its antahkarana (inter- 
nal instrument), as the psychological term for the 
mind is. And the mind by means of a series of 
internal organs works the visible organs of the body. 
What is this mind? It was comparatively only the 
other day that Western philosophers arrived at the 
knowledge that the eyes are not the real organs of 
vision, but that behind these are other organs, the 
indriyas, and if these are destroyed a man may have 
a thousand eyes, like Indra, but there will be no sight 
for him. Aye, your philosophy starts with this as- 
sumption, that by vision is not meant the external 
vision. The real vision belongs to the internal organs, 
the brain centres inside. You may call them what 
you like, but the indriyas are not the eyes, or the nose. 



VEDANTA 321 

or the ears. And the sum total of all these indriyas 
plus the manas, huddhi, chitta, ahankara, etc., is what 
is called the mind, and if the modern physiologist 
comes to tell you that the brain is what is called the 
mind and that the brain is formed of so many organs, 
you need not be afraid at all; tell him your philoso- 
phers knew it always, it is the very alpha of your 
religion. 

Next we have to understand what is meant by this 
manas, huddhi, chitta, ahankara, etc. First of all let 
us consider the chitta; it is the "mind-stuff" — a part 
of the mahat — and is the generic name for the mind 
itself, including all its various states. Suppose here 
is a lake on a summer evening, smooth and calm, 
without a ripple on its surface. Let us call this the 
chitta. And suppose some one throws a stone into 
this lake. What happens? First there is the action, 
the blow given to the water, next the water rises and 
sends a reaction towards the stone, and that reaction 
takes the form of a wave. First the water vibrates a 
little, then immediately sends back a reaction in the 
form of a wave. This chitta let us compare to this 
lake, and the external objects are like these stones 
thrown into it. As soon as it comes in contact with 
any external object by means of these indriyas — the 
indriyas must be there to carry these external objects 
inside — there is a vibration, what is called the manas, 
indecisive. Next there is a reaction, the determinative 
faculty, huddhi, and along with this huddhi flashes the 
idea aham (egoism) and the external object. Suppose 
there is a mosquito sitting on my hand. This sensa- 
tion is carried to my chitta and it vibrates a little, this 



322 J NANA YOGA 

is the psychological nianas. Then there is reaction, 
and immediately comes the idea that I have a mos- 
quito on my hand, and that I shall have to drive it off. 
Thus these stones are thrown into the lake, but in the 
case of the lake, every blow that comes to it is from 
the external world, while in the case of the lake of 
the mind the blows may either come from the external 
world, or the internal world. This whole series — 
chitta, manas, etc.^ form what is called the antah- 
karana. Along with it you ought to understand one 
thing more that will help us in understanding the 
Advaita system later on. It is this. All of you must 
have seen pearls, and most of you know how pearls 
are made. Some irritating grain of dust or sand 
enters into the body of the pearl oyster and sets up 
an irritation there, and the oyster's body reacts towards 
the irritation and covers the little grain with its own 
juice. That crystallizes and forms the pearl. So the 
whole universe is like that, the universe is the pearl 
which is being formed by us. What we get from the 
external world is simply the blow. Even to know 
that blow we have to react, and as soon as we react 
we project really a portion of our own mind towards 
the blow, and when we come to know of it, it is really 
our own mind as it has been shaped by the blow. 
Therefore it is clear even to those who wish to believe 
in a hard and fast realism of an external world, (and 
they cannot but admit it in these days of physiology,) 
that, supposing that we represent the external world 
by "X" what we really know is "X" plus mind, and 
this mind element is so great that it has covered the 
whole of that ''X" which has remained unknown and 



VEDANTA 323 

unknowable throughout, therefore if there be an ex- 
ternal world it is always unknown and unknowable. 
What we know of it is as moulded, formed, fashioned 
by our own mind. So with the internal world. The 
same applies to our own soul, the dtman. In order 
to know the dtman we shall have to know it through 
the mind, and therefore what little we know of this 
dtman is simply the dtman plus the mind. That is 
to say, the dtman covered over^ fashioned, and moulded 
by the mind, and nothing more. We shall revert to 
this a little later, but we will remember it here. 

The next thing to understand is this. The state- 
ment was made that this body is merely the name of 
one continuous stream of matter. Every moment we 
are adding material to it, and every moment material 
is being thrown off by it, like unto a continually flow- 
ing river in which vast masses of water are always 
changing place ; yet we take up the whole in imagina- 
tion, and call it the same river. What do we call the 
river? Every moment the water is changing, the 
shore is changing, every moment the trees and plants, 
the leaves, and the foliage are changing; what is the 
river? It is the name of this series of changes. So 
with the mind. There is the Buddhistic side, the great 
Kshanika Vijndna Vada doctrine, most difficult to 
understand, but most rigorously and logically worked 
out ; and this also arose in India in opposition to some 
part of the Vedanta. It had to be answered, and we 
will see how, later on, it could only be answered by 
the Advaita and by nothing else. We shall also see 
how, in spite of people's curious notions about Advai- 
ta, people's fright about Advaita, it is the salvation 



324 J NANA YOGA 

of the world, because therein alone is to be found the 
reason of things. Dualism and other *4sms" are very 
good as means of worship, very satisfying to the mind ; 
it may be that they have helped the mind onward ; but 
if man wants to be rational and religious at the same 
time, Advaita is the one system in the world for him. 
We will regard the mind as a similar river, contin- 
ually emptying itself at one end, and filling itself at 
the other end. Where is that unity which we call the 
dtmanf The idea is that, in spite of this continuous 
change in the body, and in spite of this continuous 
change in the mind, there is in us something that is 
unchangeable. When rays of light coming from dif- 
ferent quarters fall upon a screen, or a wall, or upon 
something that is not changeable, then and then alone 
it is possible for them to form one complete whole. 
Where is this background in the human mind, falling 
upon which, as it were, the various ideas will come 
to unity and become one complete whole? This cer- 
tainly cannot be the mind itself, seeing that it also 
changes. Therefore there must be something which 
is neither the body nor the mind, something which 
changes not, something permanent, upon which all our 
sensations, all our ideas fall to form a unity and a 
complete whole, and this is the real soul, the dtman 
of man. And seeing that everything material, even 
if you call it fine matter, or mind, must be changeful ; 
seeing that what you call gross matter, the external 
world, must be more changeful in comparison to that ; 
this unchangeable something cannot be of material 
substance ; it must be spiritual ; that is to say, it is not 
matter ; it is indestructible, unchangeable. 



VEDANTA 325 

Next will come another question — apart from those 
old arguments which only rise in the external world, 
the arguments from design — who created this external 
world, who created matter, etc. ? The idea here is to 
know truth only from the inner nature of man, and 
the question arises just in the same way as it arose 
about the soul. Taking for granted that there is an 
unchangeable soul in each man, which is neither the 
mind, nor the body, there is still a unity of idea among 
these souls, a unity of feeling, of sympathy. How is 
it possible that my soul can act upon your soul, where 
is the medium through which it can work, where is 
the medium through which it can act? How is it I 
can feel anything about your soul? What is it that 
is in touch both with your soul and with my soul? 
Herein arises a metaphysical necessity for admitting 
another soul, for it must be a soul which acts in contact 
with all the different souls ; one Soul which covers and 
interpenetrates all the infinite number of souls in the 
world, in and through which they live, in and through 
which they sympathize and love and work for one 
another. And this universal Soul is Paramdtman, the 
Lord God of the universe. Again, it follows that 
because the soul is not composed of matter, because it 
is spiritual, it cannot obey the laws of matter, it cannot 
be judged by the laws of matter. It is therefore 
deathless and changeless. "This Self the fire cannot 
burn, nor instruments pierce, the sword cannot cut 
it asunder, the air cannot dry it up, nor can water 
melt it; unconquerable, deathless, and birthless is this 
Self of man." What is this Self doing then? We 
have known that according to the GUa and according 



^26 J NANA YOGA 

to Vedanta, this individual Self is also vihhu (all per- 
vading), is, according to Kapila, omnipresent. Of 
course there are sects in India which regard this Self 
as anu (infinitely small), but what they mean is ami 
in mani testation ; its real nature is vihhu. 

There comes another idea, startling perhaps, yet a 
characteristically Indian idea, and if there is any idea 
that is common to all our sects it is this. Therefore 
I beg you to pay attention to this one idea and to 
remember it, for this is the very foundation of every- 
thing that we have in India. The idea is this. You 
have heard of the doctrine of physical evolution 
preached in the Western world, by the German and 
English savants. It tells us that the bodies of the 
different animals differ only in degree, not in kind. 
The differences that we see are but varying expres- 
sions of the same series, but from the lowest worm to 
the highest and most saintly man it is but one chain 
of expression, the one changing into the other, going 
up and up, higher and higher, until it attains perfec- 
tion. We had that idea also. Declares our Yogi 
Patanjali, ''Jdtyantara parinamah/' "one species (the 
jati is species) changes into another species," (evolu- 
tion) ; parindmah means one thing changing into an- 
other, just as one species changes into another. Where 
do we differ from the Europeans? Patanjali says: 
"Prakritydpurdf — ''By the infilling of nature." The 
European says it is competition, natural and sexual 
selection, etc., that forces one body to take the form 
of another. But here is another idea, a still better 
analysis, going deeper into the thing, and saying ''By 
the infilling of nature." What is meant by this infilling 



VEDANTA 327 

of nature? We admit that the amoeba goes higher 
and higher until it becomes a Buddha ; we admit this, 
but we are, at the same time, equally certain that you 
cannot get any amount of work out of a machine until 
you put it on the other side. The sum total of the 
energy remains the same whatever the form it may 
take. If you want a mass of energy at one end you 
have got to put it in at the other end, it may be in 
another form, but the amount must be the same. 
Therefore, if a Buddha is the one end of the change, 
the very amoeba must have been the Buddha also. 
If the Buddha is the evolved amoeba, the amoeba 
was the involved Buddha. If this universe is the 
manifestation of an almost infinite amount of energy, 
when this universe was in a state of pralaya (rest), 
it must have represented the same amount of involved 
energy. It cannot have been otherwise. As such it 
follows that every soul is infinite. From the lowest 
worm that crawls under our feet to the noblest 
and greatest saints, all possess this infinite power, 
infinite purity, and infinite everything. The apparent 
difference is in the degree of manifestation. The 
worm is manifesting only a little bit of that energy; 
you have manifested more, another god-man has 
manifested still more; that is all the diflPerence. 
But that infinite power is there all the same. Says 
Patau jali ; ^'Tatah kshetrikavat" — "J^^t as the peasant 
irrigating his field." He has a little canal that comes 
into his field and brings water from a reservoir some- 
where, and perhaps he has a little lock that prevents 
the water from rushing into his field. When he wants 
water he has simply to open the lock and in rushes the 



328 J NANA YOGA 

water by its own power. The power has not to be 
added, it is already there in the reservoir. So, every 
one of us, every being has as his own background such 
a reservoir of strength, infinite power, infinite purity, 
infinite bhss, and infinite existence, only these locks, 
these bodies are hindering us from fully expressing 
what we really are. And as these bodies become more 
and more finely organized, as the tamasa guna (dull- 
ness) becomes the rajasa guna (activity) and as the 
rajasa guna becomes sattva guna (purity), more and 
more of this power and purity will become manifest; 
and it is for this reason that our people have been so 
careful about their eating and drinking. It may be 
that the original ideas have been lost, just as with our 
child-marriage, which, though not belonging to the 
subject, I may take as an example. If I have another 
opportunity I will talk more fully about it, for the ideas 
behind child-marriage are the only ideas through which 
there can be a real civilization. There cannot be any- 
thing else. If a man, or a woman, is allowed the 
freedom to take up any man or wornan, as wife or 
husband, if individual pleasure, or satisfaction of 
animal instincts, were to be allowed to run loose in 
society, the result must be evil, evil children, wicked 
and demoniacal. Aye, man in every country is, on the 
one hand, producing these evil children, and on the 
other hand multiplying the police force to keep down 
their brutal instincts. The question is not how to 
destroy evil that way, but how to prevent the very 
birth of evil, and as long as you live in society, your 
marriage certainly affects every member of it; there- 
fore society has the right to dictate whom you shall 



VEDA NT A 329 

marry, and whom you shall not. And great ideas 
of this kind have been behind the system of child- 
marriage here, what they call the astrological jati of 
the bride and bridegroom. And in passing I may 
remark that according to Manu a child who is born 
of lust is not an Aryan. The child whose very con- 
ception and whose death is according to the rules of 
Vedas, such is an Aryan. Yes, and less of these 
Aryan children are being produced in every country, 
and the result is the mass of evil which we call Kali 
Yuga (Black Age). But we have lost these ideals, 
we cannot carry these ideas to the fullest length now. 
It is perfectly true that we have made almost a caric- 
ature of som.e of them. It is lamentably true that 
fathers and mothers are not what they were in the 
old times, neither is society so educated as it used to 
be, neither has society that love for individuals that 
it used to have. But however faulty the working out 
may be, the principle is sound; and if its application 
has become defective, if one method has failed, take 
up the principle and work it out better; why kill 
the principle ? The same applies to the food question, 
the work and details are bad, very bad indeed, but 
that does not affect the principle. The principle is 
eternal and must be kept. Work it out afresh, and 
make a reform application. 

This great idea of the atman is the one in India 
which every one of our sects has got to believe ; only, 
as we will find, the dualists preach that this atman by 
evil works becomes sankocha, that is, all its powers 
and its nature become contracted, and by good works 
its nature again expands. The Advaitist, on the other 



330 J NANA YOGA 

hand, says that the atman never expands or contracts, 
but only seems to do so; it appears to have become 
contracted. That is the only difference; but all have 
the one idea that the dtman has all power already; 
that nothing will come to it from outside, that nothing 
will drop into it from the skies. Mark you, your 
Vedas are not inspired, but expired; they come not 
from somewhere outside, but are eternal laws living 
in every soul. The Vedas are in the soul of the ant, 
in the soul of the god. The ant has only to evolve 
and get the body of a sage or a Rishi, and the Vedas 
will come out, eternal laws expressing themselves. 
This is the one great idea to understand, that our 
power is already ours, our salvation is already within 
us. Say either that it has become contracted, or say 
that it has been covered with the evil of mdyd, it mat- 
ters little ; the idea is there ; you must believe in that, 
believe in the possibilities of everybody, that even in 
the lowest man there is the same possibility as in the 
Buddha. This is doctrine of the dtman. 

But now comes a tremendous fight. Here are the 
Buddhists, who equally analyze the body into a material 
stream, and as equally analyze the mind into another. 
About this dtman, however, they state that it is unneces- 
sary ; that we need not assume the dtman at all. What 
use of a substance and qualities inhering in the sub- 
stance? Why not say gunas, qualities, and qualities 
alone? It is illogical to assume two causes where one 
will explain the whole thing. And the fight went on, 
and all the theories which held the doctrine of sub- 
stance were thrown to the ground by the Buddhists. 
There was a break up all along the line of those who 



VEDANTA 331 

held to the doctrine of substance and qualities, that 
you have a soul, and I have a soul, and every one has 
a soul separate from the mind and body — and each 
one individual. So far we have seen that the idea 
of dualism is all right, for there is the body, there is 
then the fine mind, there is this dtman, and in and 
through all the dtmans is that Paramatinan, God. The 
difficulty is here, that this dtman and Paramdtman are 
both so-called substance, in which the mind and body 
inhere like so many qualities. Nobody has ever seen 
substance, none can ever conceive it; what is the use 
of thinking of this substance ? Why not say that what- 
ever exists is this succession of mental currents and 
nothing more. They do not inhere in each other, they 
do not form a unit, one is chasing the other, like waves 
in the ocean, never complete, never forming one unit 
whole. Man is a succession of waves, and when one 
goes away it generates another, and so on, and the 
cessation of these wave forms is what is called Nirvana. 
You see that dualism is mute before this, it is impos- 
sible that it can bring up any argument, and the 
dualistic God also cannot be retained here. The idea 
of a God that is omnipresent, and yet is a person who 
creates without hands, and moves without feet, and 
who has created the universe as a kumbhakara (potter) 
creates a ghata (pot), the Buddhist declares is childish, 
and that if this be God he is going to deny and not 
worship Him. This universe is full of misery; if it 
be the work of a God, we are going to fight Him. And 
secondly, this God is illogical and impossible, as all 
of you are aware. We need not go into the defects 
of the design theory, nor into all the arguments against 



332 J NANA YOGA 

the Idea of a personal God. Truth and nothing but 
truth can prevail. The Advaitist watchword is: 
Satayameva jayati — "Truth alone triumphs, and not 
untruth." Through truth alone the way to Devayanam 
lies. Everybody marches forward under that banner ; 
but it is not meant to crush the weak man's position. 

You come with your dualistic idea of God to pick 
a quarrel with a poor man who is worshipping an 
image, and you think you are wonderfully rational. 
You can confound him, but if he turns round and 
shatters your own personal God, and calls that an 
imaginary ideal, where are you? You fall back on 
faith, or raise up the cry of atheism, the old cry of 
weak man — whosoever defeats him is an atheist. If 
you are to be rational, be rational all along the line; 
and if not, allow others the same privilege which you 
ask for yourselves. How can you prove the existence 
of this God? On the other hand, it can be almost 
disproved. There is not a shadow of proof as to His 
existence, and there are very strong arguments to 
the contrary. How will you prove His existence, 
with your God, and his gunas, and an infinite number 
of souls which are substance and each soul an indi- 
vidual? In what are you an individual? You are 
not as a body, for you know to-day better even than 
the Buddhists of old knew that what may have been 
matter in the sun has just now become matter in you, 
and shortly will go out and become matter in the 
plants, where is your individuality, you Mr. So and So ? 
You have one thought to-night and another to-morrow. 
You do not think the same way that you thought 
when a child, and old men do not think as they did 



VEDANTA 333 

when they were young. Where is your individuality ? 
Do not say it is in consciousness, this ahankara, 
because this only covers a small part of your existence. 
While I am talking to you all my organs are working 
and I am not conscious of it. If consciousness is the 
proof of existence they do not exist then, because I 
am not conscious of them. Where are you then with 
your personal God theories? How can you prove 
such a God? 

Again, the Buddhists will stand up and declare, 
not only is it illogical, but immoral, for it teaches man 
to be a coward and to seek assistance outside, and 
nobody can give him such help. Here is the universe, 
man made it, why, then, depend on an imaginary being 
outside, whom nobody ever saw or felt, or got help 
from ? Why then do you make cowards of yourselves, 
and teach your children that the highest state of man is 
to be a dog, to go crawling before this imaginary 
being, saying that you are weak and impure, and that 
you are everything vile in this universe? On the 
other hand, the Buddhists may urge not only that you 
are telling a lie, but that you are bringing a tremendous 
amount of evil upon your children, for, mark you, 
this world is one of hypnotization. Whatever you 
tell yourself that you believe. Almost the first words 
the great Buddha uttered were : "What you think, 
that you are; what you will think, that you will be." 
If this be true — and who can deny it — do not teach 
yourselves that you are nothing, and that you cannot 
do anything unless you are helped by somebody who 
does not live here, who sits above the damp clouds. 
The result will be that you will be more and more 



334 J NANA YOGA 

weakened every day; and by constantly repeating: 
"We are very impure; Lord, make us pure," you will 
hypnotize yourselves into all sorts of vices. 

The Buddhists say that ninety per cent, of the vices 
that are found in every society arise from this idea 
of inferiority and become as a dog before God; this 
awful idea of the human being that the end and aim 
of this expression of life, this wonderful expression 
of life, is to become like a worm of the dust. Says 
the Buddhist to the Vaishnavist, if your ideal, your 
aim and goal is to go to a place called Vaikunta, where 
God lives, and there stand before Him with folded 
hands all through eternity, it is better to commit suicide. 
The Buddhist may even urge that it is better to believe 
in annihilation to escape this. 

I am putting these ideas before you as a Buddhist 
just for the time being, because nowadays all these 
Advaitic ideas are said to make you immoral, and I 
am trying to tell you how the other side looks. Let 
us face both sides boldly and bravely. We have seen 
first of all that the Buddhists claim that the idea of 
personal God creating the world cannot be proved; 
is there any child that can believe this to-day? 
Because a kumhhakara creates a ghata, therefore a 
God created the world. If this be so, then your kumh- 
hakara is a god also, and if any one tells you that he 
acts w^ithout head and hands you may take him to a 
lunatic asylum. Has your God, the Creator of the 
world, your personal God, to whom you cry all your 
life, ever helped you, and what help have you received 
is the next challenge from modern science? 

They will prove that any help you have had could 



VEDANTA 335 

have been obtained by your own exertion, and better 
still, you need not have spent your energy in that 
crying, you could have done it all without weeping 
or crying at all. We have seen that along with this 
idea of a personal God comes tyranny and priestcraft. 
Tyranny and priestcraft have prevailed wherever this 
idea existed, and until the lie is knocked on the head, 
say the Buddhists, tyranny will not cease. So long 
as man thinks he has to cower before a supernatural 
being, so long there will be priests to claim rights and 
privileges and to make men cower before them, while 
these poor men will continue to ask some priest to 
stand as interceder for them. You may knock the 
Brahmin on the head, but mark me that those who 
do so will stand in his place, and will be worse ; because 
these ancient Brahmins have a certain amount of gen- 
erosity in them, and upstarts are always the worst 
tyrants. If a beggar gets wealth, he thinks the whole 
world is a bit of straw. So priests there will be, as 
long as this personal God idea continues, and it will 
be impossible to think of any great morality in society. 
Priestcraft and tyranny will go hand in hand as long 
as the need of mediation is felt by mankind. It is 
the idea of a thunderer, who kills every one who does 
not obey him. Next the Buddhist says, you have been 
so rational up to this point that you say that every- 
thing is the result of the law of Karma. You believe 
in an infinity of souls and the belief in the law of 
Karma is perfectly logical no doubt. There cannot 
be a cause without an eflFect, the present must have 
had its cause in the past, and will have its effect in 
the future. The Hindu says the karma is jada (non- 



33^ J NANA YOGA 

intelligent) and not chaitanya (intelligent), therefore 
some chaitanya is necessary to bring this cause to 
fruition. Is it that chaitanya is necessary to bring 
the plant to fruition? If I add water and plant the 
seed, no chaitanya is necessary. You may say there 
was some original chaitanya, but the souls themselves 
were the chaitanya, none else is necessary. If human 
souls have it too, what necessity is there for a God, 
as say the Jains, who, unlike the Buddhists, believe 
in souls and do not believe in God. Where are you 
logical, where are you moral? And when you try to 
maintain that Advaita will make for immorality, just 
read a little of what has been done in India by dualistic 
sects, and what has been brought before law courts. 
If there have been ten thousand Advaitist black- 
guards, there will be twenty thousand Dvaitist black- 
guards. Generally speaking, there will be more 
Dvaitist blackguards, because it takes a better ♦lype of 
mind to understand Advaita, and they can scarcely 
be frightened into anything. What stands for you 
then? There is no escape from the arguments of the 
Buddhist. You may quote the Vedas, but he does 
not believe in them. He will say: "My Tripetakas 
say otherwise, and they are without beginning or end, 
not even written by Buddha, for Buddha says he is 
only reciting them, they are eternal." And he adds 
that yours are wrong and his are the true Vedas, yours 
are manufactured by the Brahmin priests, therefore 
out with them. How do you escape ? 

Here is the Avay out. Take up the first objection, 
the metaphysical one, that substance and qualities are 
different. Says the Advaitist they are not. There is 



VEDANTA 337 

no difference between substance and qualities. You 
know the old illustration, how the rope is taken for 
the snake, and when you see the snake you do not 
sec the rope at all, the rope has vanished. Dividing 
the thing into substance and quality is a metaphysical 
something in the brains of philosophers, never can it 
Jiave an objective reality. You see substance if you 
are an ordinary man, and qualities if you are a great 
yogi, but you never see both at the same time. So, 
Buddhists, your quarrel about substance and qualities 
has been but a quibble which does not exist in fact. 
But, if substance is qualified, there can only be one. 
If you take qualities from the soul, and show that these 
qualities are in the mind, really superimposed on the 
soul, then there can never be two souls, for it is quali- 
fication that makes the difference between one soul 
and another. How do you know that one soul is dif- 
ferent from another ? Owing to certain differentiating 
marks, certain qualities. And where qualities do not 
exist, how can there be differentiations? Therefore 
there are not two souls, there is but One, and your 
Paramdtman is unnecessary, it is this very soul. That 
one is called Paramdtman, that very one is also called 
jivdtman, and so on, and you dualists, such as Sdnkhya 
and others, who say that the soul is omnipresent, vibhu,, 
tell me, how can there be two Infinites? There can 
be only one. What else ? This one is the one Infinite 
Atman, everything else is Its manifestation. There 
the Buddhist stops, but there it does not end. 

The Advaitist position is not merely a weak one of 
criticism. The Advaitist criticises others when they 
come too near him, just throws them away, that 



338 J NANA YOGA 

is all, but he propounds his own position. He is the 
only one that criticises, and does not stop with criticism 
and showing books. You say the universe is a thing 
of continuous motion. In vyashti everything is mov- 
ing, you are moving, the table is moving, motion every- 
where, samsdra: continuous motion, this is jagat (the 
universe) . Therefore there cannot be individuality in 
this jagat, because individuality means that which does 
not change ; there cannot be any changeful individual- 
ity, it is a contradiction in terms. There is no such 
thing as individuality in this little world of ours, the 
jagat. Thought and feeling, mind and body, plants and 
animals and so on, are in a continuous state of flux. 
But suppose you take the universe as a unit whole ; can 
it change or move ? Certainly not. Motion is possible 
only in comparison with something which is a little 
less in motion, or entirely motionless. The universe 
as a whole, therefore, is motionless, unchangeable. 
You are, therefore, an individual then and then alone, 
when you are the whole of it, when you realize : 'T am 
the universe." That is why the Vedantist says that so 
long as there are two, fear does not cease. It is only 
when one does not see another^ does not feel another 
that fear ceases ; then alone death vanishes, then alone 
samsdra disappears. Advaita teaches us therefore that 
man is individual in being universal, and not in being 
particular. You are immortal only when you are the 
whole. You are fearless and deathless when you are 
the universe, and then that which you call the iiniverse 
is the same as that which you call God. It is the same 
undivided existence which is taken to be many by 
people having the same state of mind as we have. 



VEDANTA 339 

looking upon this universe as we see it, suns, and 
moons, and so on. People who have made a little 
better karma and have another state of mind, when 
they die look upon it as svarga (Heaven), and see 
Indras and so forth. People still higher will see the 
very same thing as Brahma Loka, and the perfect 
ones will neither see the earth nor the heavens, nor 
any loka at all. This universe will have vanished, 
and Brahman will be in its stead. 

Can we know this Brahman? I have told you of 
the painting of the infinite in the Samhita. Here we 
shall find another side taken, the infinite internal. That 
was the infinite of the muscles. Here we shall have 
the infinite of thought. There the attempt was made 
to paint the infinite in positive language here that lan- 
guage failed, and the attempt has been made to paint 
it in negative language. Here is this universe, and 
even admitting that it is Brahman, can we know it? 
No ! No ! You must understand this one thing very 
clearly. Again and again this doubt will come to 
you, if this be Brahman, how can we know it? "By 
what, O Maitreyi, can the knower be known; how 
can the knower be known ?" The eyes see everything ; 
can they see themselves? They cannot, because the 
very fact of knowledge is a degradation. Children 
of Aryas you must remember this, for herein lies a 
great error. All the Western temptations that come 
to you, have their metaphysical basis in that one claim 
— ^that there is nothing higher than sense knowledge. 
In the East, we say in our Veda's that this knowledge 
is lower than the thing itself, because it is always a 
limitation. When you want to know a thing, it imme- 



340 J NANA YOGA 

diately becomes limited by your mind. They cite that 
instance of the oyster making pearls to show how 
knowledge is limitation, gathering a thing, bringing it 
into consciousness, and not knowing it as a whole. 
This is true about all knowledge, and can it be less so 
about the infinite? Can you thus limit Him who is 
the Substance of all knowledge. Him who is the Sdkshi, 
the Witness, without whom you cannot have any knowl- 
edge. Him who has no qualities, who is the Witness 
of the whole tmiverse, the Witness in our souls ? How 
can you know Him ? By what means can you encom- 
pass Him? Everything, the whole universe, is a false 
attempt to do so. As it were this infinite Atman is 
trying to see his own face, and all from the lowest 
animal to the highest of gods, are like so many mir- 
rors to reflect himself in, and he is taking up still 
others, finding them insufficient, and so on, until in 
the human body he comes to know that it is finite of 
the finite, that all is finite; that there cannot be any 
expression of the infinite in the finite. Then comes 
the retrograde march, and this is what is called renun- 
ciation, vairdgyam. Back from the senses, back: do 
not go to the senses, is the watchword of vairdgyam. 
This is the watchword of all morality, this is the watch- 
word of all well-being, for you must remember that 
the imiverse begins in tapasya, in renunciation; and 
as you go back and back all the forms are being mani- 
fested before you, and they are left aside one after the 
other until you remain what you really are. This is 
moksha, or liberation. 

This idea we have to understand — "How to know 
the knower;" the knower cannot be known, because 



VEDANTA 341 

if it be known, it will not be the knower. If you 
look at your eyes in a mirror, the reflection is no 
more your eyes, but something else, a reflection only. 
Then if this Soul, this universal, infinite being which 
you are, is only a witness, what good is it? It can- 
not live, and move about, and enjoy the world, as we 
do. People cannot understand how the witness can 
enjoy. Oh, you Hindus have become quiescent, and 
good for nothing, through this doctrine that you are 
witnesses. First of all it is only the witness that can 
enjoy. The more and more you are the witness of 
anything in life the more you enjoy it. And this is 
anandam (bliss), and therefore infinite bliss can only 
be yours when you have become the witness of this 
universe, then alone you are a mukta (free soul.) It 
is the witness alone that can work without any desire, 
without any idea of going to heaven, without any 
fear of blame, without any desire for praise. The 
witness alone enjoys, and none else. 

Coming to the moral aspect, there is one thing 
between the metaphysical and the moral aspect of 
Advaitism, it is the theory of Maya. Every one of 
these points in the Advaita system requires years to 
understand and months to tell. Therefore you will 
excuse me if I only just touch upon them en passant. 
This theory of mdyd has been the most difficult thing 
to understand in all ages. Let me tell you in a few 
words that it is more than a theory, it is the combina- 
tion of the three ideas Desa-kdla-nimitfa — Space, 
time, and causation, which have been further reduced 
to nama-rupa — name and form. Suppose there is a 
wave in the ocean. The wave is distinct from the 



342 JNANA YOGA 

ocean only in its form and name, and this form and 
this name cannot have any separate existence from 
the wave, they exist only with the wave. The wave 
may subside, but the same amount of water remains, 
even if the name and form that were on the wave 
vanish forever. So this mdya is what makes the 
difference between me and you, between all animals 
and man, between men and gods. In fact it is this 
may a that causes the Atman to be caught, as it were, 
in so many millions of beings, and these are distin- 
guishable only through name and form. If you let 
name and form go, all this variety vanishes forever, 
and you are what you really are. This is mdya. It 
is again no theory, but a statement of facts. 

When the realist states that this world exists, what 
he means is that this table has an independent exist- 
ence of its own, that it does not depend on the exist- 
ence of anything else in the universe, and if the rest 
of the universe were destroyed and annihilated this 
table would remain just as it is now. A little knowl- 
edge shows 3'^ou this cannot be. Everything here in 
the sense-world is dependent and inter-dependent, 
relative and correlative, the existence of one depend- 
ing on the other. There are three steps, therefore, in 
our knowledge of things; the first is that each thing 
is individual and separate from every other; the next 
step is to find that there is relation and correlation 
between all things; and the third is that there is only 
one thing which we see as many. The first idea of 
God with the ignorant is that God is somewhere 
outside of the universe; that is to say, the con- 
ception of God is extremely human, He does just 



VEDA NT A 343 

what a man does only on a higher scale. And 
we have seen how that idea of God is proved in 
a few words to be unreasonable and insufficient. And 
next is the idea of a power that we see manifested 
everywhere. This is the real personal God we get in 
the Chandi (a book of praise of the Divine Mother), 
but, mark me, not the God whom you make the reser- 
voir of all good qualities only. You cannot have two 
Gods, God and Satan, you must have only one, and 
dare to call Him good and bad, but have only one, 
and take the logical consequences. 

"Thus we salute Thee, O Divine Mother, who 
lives in every being as peace, who lives in all beings 
as purity." At the same time we must take the whole 
consequence of it. "All this bliss, O Gargi, wherever 
there is bliss, there is a portion of the Divine." You 
may use it how you like. You may try to give a poor 
man a hundred rupees, another man may forge your 
name, but the sunlight will be the same for both. 
This is the second stage, and the third is that God 
is neither outside nature, nor inside nature, but God 
and nature and soul and universe are all convertible 
terms. You never see two things, it is your meta- 
physical words that have deluded you. You assume 
that you are a body and have a soul, and that you are 
both together. How can that be? Try in your own 
mind. If there is a yogi among you, he knows him- 
self as chaitanya, for him the body has vanished. An 
ordinary man thinks of himself as a body; the idea 
of spirit has vanished; but because the metaphysical 
ideas exist that man has a body and a soul and all 
these things, you think they are all simultaneously 



344 j^NANA YOGA 

there. One thing at a time. Do not talk of God 
when you see matter, you see the effect and the effect 
alone, and the cause you cannot see, and the moment 
you can see the cause the effect will have vanished. 
Where then is this world, and who has taken it off ? 

"One that is formless and limitless, beyond all com- 
pare, beyond all qualities, O sage, O learned man, 
such a Brahman will shine in your heart in samadhi" 
(the superconscious state.) 

"Where all the changes of nature cease forever, 
thought beyond all thoughts, whom the Vedas declare, 
who is the essence in what we call our existence, such 
a Brahman will manifest himself in you in samadhi." 

"Beyond all birth and death, the Infinite One, 
incomparable, like the whole universe deluged in water 
in mahdpralaya ("the great dissolution'') — water 
above, water beneath, water on all sides, and on the 
face of that water not a wave, not a ripple, silent and 
calm, all visions have died out, all fights and quarrels 
and wars of fools and saints have ceased forever, 
such a Brahman will shine in your hearts in samadhi/' 
That also comes, and when that comes the world has 
vanished. 

We have seen then, that this Brahman, this Reality 
is unknown and unknowable, not in the sense of the 
agnostic, but because to know Him would be blas- 
phemy, because you are He already. We have also 
seen that this Brahman is not this table and yet is 
this table. Take off the name and form, and what- 
ever is reality is He. He is the reality in everything. 
"Thou art the woman, thou art the man, thou the 
young man walking in the pride of youth, thou the old 



VEDANTA 345 

man tottering on his stick, thou art all in all, in every- 
thing, and I am Thou, I am Thou." 

That is the theme of Advaitism. A few words 
more. Herein we find the explanation of the essence 
of things. We have seen how here alone we can take 
a firm stand against all the onrush of logic and scien- 
tific knowledge. Here at last reason has a firm 
foundation. At the same time the Indian Vedantist 
does not curse the preceding steps. He looks back 
and he blesses them, for he knows that they were true, 
only wrongly perceived and wrongly stated. They 
were seen through the glass of mdya, distorted it may 
be, yet truth and nothing but truth. The same God 
whom the ignorant man saw outside nature, the same 
whom the little-knowing man saw as inter-penetrating 
the universe, and the same whom the sage realizes as 
his own self, as the whole universe itself, all are one 
and the same being, the same entity seen from differ- 
ent points of view, seen through different glasses of 
maya, perceived by different minds. All the differ- 
ence is caused by that. Not only so, but one view must 
lead to the other. What is the difference between 
science and common knowledge? Go out into one of 
these streets and if something is happening, ask one 
of gonwars (boors) what it is. It is ten to one that he 
will tell you that a ghost is causing the phenomenon. 
He is always going after ghosts and spirits outside, 
because it is the nature of ignorance to seek for causes 
outside of effects. If a stone falls it has been thrown 
by a devil or a ghost, says the ignorant man, but the 
scientific man says it is the law of nature, the law of 
gravitation. 



346 J NANA YOGA 

What is the fight between science and religion 
everywhere? Religions are encumbered with a mass 
of explanations which are outside, one angel is in 
charge of the sun, another of the moon, and so on ad 
infinitum; every change is caused by a spirit, the one 
point of agreement being that they are all outside the 
thing itself; while science means that the cause of a 
thing is to be sought in the nature of the thing itself. 
As step by step science is progressing, it has taken 
the explanation of natural phenomena out of the hands 
of spirits and angels. Because Advaitism has done 
likewise, it is the most scientific religion. This uni- 
verse has not been created by any extra-cosmic God, 
nor is it the work of any outside genius. It is self- 
created, self-manifesting, self-dissolved,, one infinite 
existence, the Brahman. ''Tat tvam asi Svetaketo" 
— "O Svetaketu, That thou art." Thus you see that 
this, and this alone, can be the scientific religion, and 
with all the prattle about science that is going on 
daily at the present time in modem half -educated 
India, with all the talk about rationalism and reason 
that I hear every day, I expect that whole sects will 
come over and dare to be Advaitists, and dare to 
preach it to the world in the words of Buddha, "for 
the good of many, for the happiness of many." If 
you do not, I take you for cowards. If you are cow- 
ards, if fear is your excuse, allow the same liberty 
unto others, do not try to overthrow the poor idol- 
worshipper, do not call him a devil, do not go about 
preaching to every man who does not agree entirely 
with you ; know first that you are cowards yourselves, 
and if society frightens you, if your own superstitions 



VEDANTA 347 

of the past frighten you so much, how much more 
will these superstitions frighten and bind down those 
who are ignorant? That is the Advaitist position. 
Have mercy on others. Would to God that the whole 
world were Advaitists to-morrow, not only in theory, 
but in realization ; but if that cannot be, let us do the 
next best thing. Let us take our less enlightened 
brothers by the hand, lead them gently step by step 
just as they can go, and know that every step in all 
religious growth in India has been progressive. It is 
not from bad to good, but from good to better. 

Something more must be said about the moral rela- 
tion. Our boys blithely talk nowadays, they learn 
from somebody — Lord knows from whom — that 
Advaita will make people immoral, because if we are 
all one and all God, we need not be moral at all. In 
the first place, that is the argument of the brute, who 
can only be kept down by the whip. If you are such a 
brute, commit suicide first, rather than be the kind of 
human being that has to be kept down by the whip. 
If the whip goes away, you will be a demon! You 
ought all to be killed just here, if such is the case; 
there is no help for you; you must always be living 
under this whip and rod, and there is no salvation, no 
escape for you. In the second place, Advaita and 
Advaita alone explains morality. Every religion 
preaches that the essence of all morality is to do good 
unto others. And why? Be unselfish. And why? 
Some god has said it ? He is not for me. Some texts 
have told it? Let them all tell it; that is nothing to 
me; let them all tell it. And if they do, what is it? 
Each one for himself, and somebody for the hinder- 



34^ J NANA YOGA 

most, that is all the morality in the world, at least 
with many. What is the reason why I should be 
moral ? You cannot explain it except when you come 
to know. "He who sees every one in himself, and 
himself in every one, thus seeing the same God living 
in all in the same manner, he (the sage) no more kills 
the self by the self." Know through Advaita that 
whomever you hurt, you hurt yourself; they are all 
you. Whether you know it or not, through all hands 
you work, through all feet you move, you are the 
king enjoying in the palace, you are the beggar lead- 
ing that miserable existence in the street ; you are the 
ignorant as well as the learned, you are the man who 
is weak, and you are the strong; know this and be 
sympathetic. And that is why we must not hurt 
others. That is why I do not even care whether I 
have got to starve, because there will be millions of 
mouths eating at the same time, and they are all mine. 
Therefore I should not care what becomes of me and 
mine, for the whole universe is mine, I am enjoying 
all the bliss at the same time; and who can kill me, 
or the universe ? Herein Advaita alone explains mor- 
ality. The others teach it, but cannot give you its 
reason. So much for explanation. 

What is the gain ? Strength is the gain. Take off 
that veil of hypnotism which you have cast upon the 
world, send not out thoughts and words of weakness 
unto humanity. Know that all sins and all evil can be 
summed up in that one word weakness. It is weak- 
ness that is the motive power in all evil doing; it is 
weakness that is the source of all selfishness, it is weak- 
ness that makes men injure each other, it is weakness 



VEDANTA 349 

that makes them manifest as they are not really. Let 
them all know what they are; let them tell day and 
night what they are. Let them suck it with their 
mothers' milk, this idea of strength. Let them ever 
repeat "Soham, Soham'' "I am He, I am He." And 
then let them think of it, and lastly let them deeply 
meditate upon it, and out of that heart will proceed 
works such as the world has never seen. What has 
to be done? This Advaitism is said by some to be 
impracticable; that is to say, it is not yet manifesting 
itself on the material plane. To a certain extent this 
is true, for, remember the saying of the Vedas — "Om, 
this is the great secret; Om. this is the greatest pos- 
session; he who knows the secret of this Om, what- 
ever he desires that he gets." Therefore first know 
the secret of this ''Om," that you are the "Om'' ; know 
the secret of this "Tat tvam asi," and then, and then 
alone, whatever you want shall come to you. If you 
want to be great materially, believe that you are so. 
I may be a little bubble, and you may be a wave 
mountain-high, but know that for both of us the 
infinite ocean is the background, the infinite Brahman 
is our magazine of power and strength, and we can 
draw as much as we like, both of us, I the bubble and 
you the mountain-high wave. Believe therefore in 
yourselves. The secret of Advaita is — Believe in 
yourselves first, and then believe in anything else. 
In the history of the world, you will find that only 
those nations that have believed in themselves have 
become great and strong. In the history of each 
nation, you will always find that only those individuals 
who have believed in themselves have become great 



350 JNANA YOGA 

and strong. Here, in India, came an Englishman, 
who was only a clerk, and for want of funds and other 
reasons he twice tried to blow out his brains, and when 
he failed he believed that he was born to do great 
things, and that man became Lord Clive, the founder 
of the Empire. If he had believed the padris and 
gone crawling all his life — "Oh Lord, I am weak and 
I am low" — where would he have been? In a lunatic 
asylum. They have made weaklings of you with 
these evil teachings. I have seen all the world over 
the bad effects of these weak teachings of humility, 
destroying the human race. 

This is on the practical side. Believe, therefore, in 
yourselves, and if you want material wealth work it 
out ; it will come to you. If you want to be intellec- 
tual let it work out on the intellectual plane and intel- 
lectual giants you shall be. And if you want to attain 
to freedom let it work out on the spiritual plane, and 
gods you shall be. "Enter into Nirvana, the blissful." 
The defect is here; so far the Advaita has only been 
tried on the spiritual plane, and nowhere else, now 
the time has come when you must make it practical. 
It shall no more be a secret, it shall no more live with 
monks in caves and forests, and in the Himalayas; 
it must come down to the daily, everyday life of the 
people; it shall be worked out in the palace of the 
king, in the cave of the recluse, it shall be worked out 
in the cottage of the poor, by the beggar in the street, 
everywhere, anywhere it can be worked out. There- 
fore do not fear if you are a woman or a Sudra, or 
anything, for this religion is so great, says Lord 
Krishna, that even the least done brings a great amount 



VEDANTA 351 

of good. Therefore children of the Aryans, do not sit 
idle, awake and arise, and stop not until the goal is 
reached. The time has come when this Advaita is to 
be worked out practically. Let us bring it down from 
heaven unto earth; this is the present dispensation. 
Aye, the voices of our forefathers of old are telling us 
to stop — stop here my children. Let these great teach- 
ings come down lower and lower until they have per- 
meated the world, till they have entered into every pore 
of society, till they have become the common property 
of everybody, till they have become part and parcel of 
our lives, till they have entered into our veins and 
tingle with every drop of blood there. 

You may be astonished to hear it, but as practical 
Vedantists the Americans are better than we are. I 
used to stand on the sea-front of New York, and look 
at the emigrants coming from different countries, 
crushed, down-trodden, hopeless, with a little bundle of 
clothes as their only possession, their clothes in rags, 
unable to look a man in the face ; if they saw a police- 
man they were afraid and tried to get to the other side 
of the footpath. And, mark you, in six months those 
very men were walking erect, well clothed, looked 
everybody in the face ; and what makes this wonderful 
difference? Suppose a man comes from Armenia, or 
from any other place where he was crushed down 
beyond all recognition, where everybody told him he 
was a born slave, born to remain in a low state all his 
life, and where at the least move on his part he was 
trodden upon^ There everything cried out to him, 
"Slave; you are a slave; remain such Helpless you 
were born, helpless remain." Even the very air mur- 



352 J NAN A YOGA 

mured round him, "There is no hope for you, hopeless 
and a slave remain;" while stronger men crushed the 
life out of him. And when that same man landed in 
New York he went about, and found a new life; he 
found that there was a place in the world where he 
was a man among men. Perhaps he went to Wash- 
ington, shook hands with the President of the United 
States, and perhaps there he saw men coming from 
distant villages, peasants, and ill clad, all shaking 
hands with the President. Then the veil of mdya 
slipped away from him. He who had been hypnotized 
into slavery and weakness, is once more awake, and he 
rises up and finds himself a man in the world of men. 

In this country of ours, the very birthplace of 
Vedanta, our masses have been hypnotized for ages 
into that very state. To touch them is pollution. To 
sit with them is pollution. Hopeless they were born; 
hopeless they must remain ; and the result is that they 
have been sinking, sinking, sinking, and have come to 
the last stage to which a human being can come. For 
what other country is there in the world where man 
has to sleep with the cattle? And for this blame 
nobody else, do not commit the mistake of the ignorant. 
The effect is here and the cause is here too. We are 
to blame. Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on 
your shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at 
others; for all the pangs you suffer you are the sole 
and only cause. 

Young men of Lahore, understand this, that this 
great sin, hereditary and national, is on your shoul- 
ders. There is no hope for us. You may make thou- 
sands of societies, twenty thousand political assem- 



VEDANTA 353 

blages, fifty thousand institutions. These will be of 
no use until there is that sympathy, that love, that 
heart, which thinks of all, until Buddha's heart comes 
once more into India, until the words of Lord Krishna 
are brought to their practical use there is no hope for 
us. You go on imitating the Europeans and their 
societies and their assemblages, but let me tell you a 
story, a fact that I saw with my own eyes. A company 
of Burmans was taken over to London by some per- 
sons from India, who turned out to be Eurasians. 
They exhibited these people in London, took all the 
money, and then took these Burmans over to the Con- 
tinent, and left them there for good or ill. These 
poor people did not know one word of any European 
language, but the English Consul in Austria sent them 
over to London. They were helpless in London, not 
knowing any one. But an English lady heard of them, 
took these foreigners from Burmah into her own 
house, gave them her own clothes, her bed, and every- 
thing, and then sent the news to the newspapers. And, 
mark you, the next day the whole nation was, as it 
were, aroused. Money poured in and these people 
were helped out, and sent back to Burmah. On this 
sort of sympathy are based all English political and 
other institutions, it is the rock foundation of love, 
for themselves at least. They may not love the 
world ; they may be enemies all round, but in that coun- 
try, it goes without saying, there is this great love for 
their own people, for truth and justice and charity to 
the stranger at the door. I would be the most un- 
grateful man, if I did not continually tell you how 
wonderfully and how hospitably I was received in 



554 JNANA YOGA 

every country in the West. Where is the heart here 
to build upon? 

No sooner do we start a little joint-stock company 
then we cheat each other, and the whole thing comes 
down with a crash. You talk of imitating the Eng- 
lish, and building as big a nation as they have. But 
where are the foundations? Ours are only sand, and 
therefore the building comes down with a crash in no 
time. Young men of Lahore, raise once more that 
wonderful banner of Advaita, for on no other ground 
can you have that all-embracing love, until you see that 
the same Lord is present in the same manner every- 
where; unfurl that banner of love. "Arise, awake 
and stop not till the goal is reached." Arise, arise 
once more, for nothing can be done without renuncia- 
tion. If you want to help others, your own little self 
must go. In the words of the Christians, you cannot 
serve God and mammon at the same time. Have 
vairdgyam — your ancestors gave up the world to do 
great things. At the present time there are men 
who give up the world to help their own salvation. 
Throw away everything, even your own salvation, and 
go and help others. Aye, you are always talking bold 
words, but here is practical Vedanta before you. Give 
up this little life of yours. What matters if you die 
of starvation, you and I and thousands like us, so long 
as this nation lives ? The nation is sinking, the curse 
of unnumbered millions is on our heads ; to whom we 
have been giving ditch-water to drink when they have 
been dying of thirst, while the perennial river of water 
was flowing past; the unnumbered millions whom we 
have allowed to starve in sight of plenty ; the unnum- 



VEDANTA 355 

bered millions to whom we have talked of Advaita and 
whom we have hated with all our strength ; the unnum- 
bered millions to whom we have talked theoretically 
that all are one, and that all are the same Lord, without 
even an ounce of practice. O my friends, must it 
only be in the mind and never in practice ? 

Wipe off this blot. Arise and awake. What mat- 
ters it if this little life goes ; every one has to die, the 
saint or the sinner, the rich or the poor. The body 
never remains for any one. Arise and awake and be 
perfectly sincere. What we want is character, that 
steadiness and character that make a man cling to a 
thing like grim death. "Let the sages blame or let 
them praise, let Lakshmi come to-day, let her go away, 
let death come just now, or in a hundred years; he 
indeed is the sage who does not make one false step 
from the path of right." Arise and awake, for the 
time is passing and all our energies will be frittered 
away in vain talking. Arise and awake, let minor 
things and quarrels over little details, and fights over 
little doctrines be thrown aside, for here is the greatest 
of all works, here are the sinking millions. Mark, 
when the Mohammedans first came into India, there 
were sixty millions of Hindus here; to-day there are 
less than twenty millions. Every day they will become 
less and less till the whole disappear. Let them disap- 
pear, but with them will disappear the marvellous 
ideas of which with all their defects and all their 
misrepresentations they have stood as representatives. 
And with them will disappear this sublime Advaita, 
the crown jewel of all spiritual thought. Therefore, 
arise, awake, with your hands stretched out to protect 



356 J NANA YOGA 

the spirituality of the world. And first of all, work 
it out for your own country. What we want is not 
so much spirituality, as the bringing down of a little 
of Advaita into the material world, first bread and 
then religion. We stuff them too much with religion, 
when the poor fellows have been starving. No 
dogmas will satisfy the cravings of hunger. There 
are two curses here, first our weakness, second our 
hatred, our dried-up hearts. You may talk doctrines 
by the thousand, you may have sects by the hundreds 
of thousands ; but it is nothing until you have the heart 
to feel, feel for them as your Veda teaches you; till 
you find that they are parts of your own bodies, till 
you realize that you and they, the poor and the rich, 
the saint and the sinner, all are parts of one Infinite 
whole which you call Brahman. 

Gentlemen, thus I have tried to place before you 
only a few of the most brilliant points of the Advaita 
system, and to show that the time has come when it 
should be carried out into practice, not only in this 
country, but everywhere. Modern science and its 
sledge-hammer blows are pulverizing the porcelain 
foundations of all dualistic religions everywhere. 
Not only here are the dualists torturing texts till they 
will extend no longer, for texts are not india-rubber; 
it is not only here that they are trying to get into the 
nooks and corners to protect themselves, it is still more 
so in Europe and America. And even there something 
of this idea will have to go from India. It has already 
reached there. It will have to increase and increase, 
and to save their civilizations too. For, in the West, 
the old order of things is vanishing, giving way to 



VEDANTA 357 

a new order of things, which is the worship of gold, 
the worship of Mammon. Even the old crude system 
of religion was better than the modern system — namely, 
competition and gold. No nation, however strong, 
can stand on such foundations, and the history of the 
world tells us that all those which had similar founda- 
tions are dead and gone. In the first place we have to 
stop the incoming of such a wave in India. There- 
fore preach the Advaita to every one, so that religion 
may withstand the shock of modern science. Not 
only so, you will have to help others, your thought 
must reach out to Europe and America. But above 
all let me once more remind you that there is need 
of practical work, and the first part of this is to go 
down to the sinking millions of India. Take them 
by the hand, remembering the words of Lord Krishna : 
"Even in this life they have conquered heaven whose 
minds are firmly fixed in this sameness, for God is 
pure and the same to all ; therefore such are said to be 
living in God." 



PDBLICATIONS OF THE YEDANTA SOCIETY. 

LECTURES BY THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA. 

The Ideal of a Universal Religion. 

The Cosmos. 

The Atman. 

The Real and Apparent Man. 

Bhakti Yoga. 

World's Fair Addresses. 

Price I o cents each ; i cent each for postage. 

The Ved^nta Philosophy.— An Address before the Graduate Philo- 
sophical Society of Haivard College, with introduction by Prof. C. C. 
Everett. 15 cents; 2 cents for postage. 

MY MASTER. 

Bound, 50 cents; postage 2 cents. 

This little book, by Swami Vivekananda, gives an account of the 
character and career of the remarkable man known in India as Paramhamsa 
Srimat Ramakrishna, who is regarded by a great number of his country- 
men as a divine incarnation. ... It is not more remarkable for the story 
it tells of a holy man than for the clear English in which it is told, and the 
expressions of elevated religious thought in its pages. . . .—Journal^ 
Indianapolis, May 13th, 1901. 

The contrast drawn by the author between the dominant ideas of the 
Occident and the Oiient is a most instructive and interesting one, and will 
prove a great aid to a correct understanding of that which causes such a wide 
difference in their respective ideals. — Times, Pittsburg, May 24th, 1901. 

The book, besides telling of the life of Sri Ramakrishna, gives an in- 
sight into some of the religious ideas of the Hindus and sets forth the more 
important ideals that vitally influence India's teeming millions. If we are 
willing to sympathetically study the religious views of our Aryan brethren 
of the Orient, we shall find them governed by spiritual concepts in no way 
inferior to the highest known to ourselves— concepts which were thought 
out and practically applied by those ancient philosophers in ages so remote 
as to antedate history. — Post, Washington, May 13th, 1901. 

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PDBLICATIONS OF THE YEDANTA SOCIETY. 

LECTURES BY THE SWAM! ABHEDANANDA. 
PHILOSOPHY OF WORK. (3 Lectures.) 

I. Philosophy of Work. 
II. Secret of Work. 
III. Duty or Motive in Work. 

Paper, 35 cents. Cloth, 50 cents. Postage 2 and 6 cents. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND VEDANTA. (Lecture.) 

Price ID cents. Postage i cent. 

WOMAN'S PLACE IN HINDU RELIGION. (Lecture.) 

Price 10 cents. Postage i cent. 

This lecture will correct many of the erroneous ideas which Christian 
missionaries have spread abroad regarding the condition of Hindu women. 
In it the Swami gives the real causes of child marriage, the burning of 
widows and other social evils which arose in certain parts of India. 

Bishop Potter writes: " Believe me, it is not of the smallest consequence 
what I have to say on the subject, but rather what they who are accused 
of such a custom have to say. And here again I summon the accomplished 
gentleman and scholar, who has already testified, SwS,mi Abhedananda. 
In the address, * Woman's Place,' from which I have already quoted and 
which I have yet to see challenged, he says. . . . " — The Cburcbman, 
Nov. 9, 1901. 

" It is an able survey of the rights of Indian womanhood from the 
Vedic down to the latest period of Hindu literature and history, and fur- 
nishes the most complete answer to those who accuse Hinduism of having 
denied the dignity and moral worth of woman. , , . The learned Swami 
makes out by an unassailable array of authorities that the idea of equality 
of man and woman is the comer-stone of religion among the Hindus." — 
Indian Review, Sept., 1901. 

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PDBLICATIOHS OF THE YEDAHTA SOCIETY. 

WORKS BY THE SWAMI ABHEDANANDA. 
HOW TO BE A YOQI. 

i6o pages, bound, $i.oo. Postage, 7 cents. 

This volume contains a comprehensive survey of the Science of Yoga 
as a whole and of its different branches. The first chapter answers the 
question '* What is Yoga? " ; and in five succeeding chapters on " Hatha 
Yoga," "Raja Yoga," "Karma Yoga," "Bhakti Yoga," and " Jn^na 
Yoga" the peculiar character and specific practices of each of these 
branches are described. The Science of Breathing and its bearing on 
health and spiritual development is also treated at length; while the con- 
cluding chapter on " Was Christ a Yogi?" brings the Yoga teaching into 
direct relation with the religious thought of the West. The text has been 
kept as free as possible from technical or Sanskrit terms, and this will make 
the book especially useful for the general reader desirous of gaining a clear 
idea of the Science of Yoga and of its various methods of training, 

SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT. (3 lectures.) 

Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, 40 cents. Postage, 2 and 5 cents. 

I. Self-control. 

II. Concentration and Meditation. 
III. God-consciousness. 

" This attractive little volume comprises three lectures on the Vedinta 
Philosophy. The discourses will be found vitally helpful even by those 
who know little and care less about the spiritual and ethical teachings of 
which the Sw^mi is an able and popular exponent. As the Veda,nta itself 
is largely a doctrine of universals and ultimates, so also is this book of 
common utility and significance among all races of believers. Its precepts 
are susceptible of application by any rational thinker, regardless of relig- 
ious predilection and inherited prejudices. The principles set forth by 
this teacher are an excellent corrective of spiritual bias or narrowness, and 
as such the present work is to be commended. It has already awakened 
an interest in Oriental literature that augurs well for the cause of human 
brotherhood, and it merits a wide circulation among all who cherish ad- 
vanced ideals." — Mind, April, igo2. 

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PDBLICATIONS OF THE YEDANTA SOCIETY. 

LECTURES BY THE SWAMI ABHEDANANDA. 

The Way to the Blessed Life. 

Scientific Basis of Religion. 

Cosmic Evolution and its Purpose. 

The Philosophy of Good and Evil. 

Does the Soul Exist after Death? 

The Relation of 5oul to God. 

The Word and the Cross in Ancient India. 

The Motherhood of God. 

Why a Hindu is a Vegetarian. 

Religion of the Hindus. 

Divine Communion. 

Who is the Saviour of Souls? 

Woman's Place in Hindu Religion. 

Why a Hindu Accepts Christ and Rejects Churchianity. 

Christian Science and Vedanta. 

10 Cents Each ; i Cent Postage. 



REINCARNATION. 



I. Reincarnation. 
II. Evolution and Reincarnation. 
III. Which is Scientific, Resurreofion or Reincarnation? 

Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, 40 cents. Postage, 2 and 5 cents. 

** In these discourses the Swimi Abhedananda considers the 
questions of evolution and the resurrection in their bearing upon 
the ancient teaching of rebirth, the truth, logic and justice of 
which are rapidly permeating the best thought of the Western 
world. For the preservation of this doctrine mankind is indebted 
to the literary storehouses of India, the racial and geographical 
source of much of the vital knowledge of Occidental peoples. 
Reincarnation is shown in the present volume to be a universal 
solvent of life's mysteries. It answers those questions of children 
that have staggered the wisest minds who seek to reconcile the 
law of evolution and the existence of an intelligent and just 
Creator with the proposition that man has but a single lifetime 
in which to develop spiritual self-consciousness. It is commended 
to every thinker." — Afind, February, J goo. 

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BAKER 6- TAYLOR CO:S PUBLICATIONS. 

BOOKS ON THE 

VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY. 

BY SWAMI VIVEKANANDA. 

RAJA YOOA. — Lectures by Swami Vivekananda, contain- 
ing also Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentary, and a 
copious Sanslcrit Glossary. The book includes a lecture on 
" Immortality," and the Swami's lectures on BHAKTI YOGA. 
A fine portrait of the author, frontispiece. The whole hand- 
somely bound in cloth, $1.50. 

*' With the simplicity of language of a child's primer, and the pro- 
gressive logic of a mathematical proposition, the Swami explains the 
simple working rules of this science. . . . The book is charming to 
any one interested in the subject, and an instructive study in logic to 
even the most indifferent." — Public Opinion^ N. Y., July 27th, 1899. 

KARMA YOQA. — Eight lectures on the practical applica- 
tion of the Vedanta Philosophy to the affairs of daily life, 
showing in a clear and forcible manner how it is possible to 
lead the highest life without abandoning the duties and avo- 
cations of one's station in the world, and proving conclusively 
that the loftiest aspiration and attainment are entirely com- 
patible with the humblest occupation, and are open to every 
human being. Cloth, with portrait. New and revised edi- 
tion. $1.00. 

MY MASTER, besides telling of the life of Sri Rama- 
krishna, gives us an insight into some of the religious ideas 
of the Hindus and sets forth the more important ideals that 
vitally influence India's teeming millions. If we are willing 
to sympathetically study the religious views of our Aryan 
brethren of the Orient, we shall find them governed by spirit- 
ual concepts in no way inferior to the highest known to our- 
selves; concepts that were thought out and practically applied 
by these ancient philosophers in ages so remote as to antedate 
history. i2mo, cloth. 50 cents. 

Sent^ postpaid^ on receipt of the price By 

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PRESS NOTICES OF RAJA YOGA. 



^ \ 



The whole spirit of the book is candid in the extreme. It 
appeals to what is best and noblest in ma— It makes no 
foolish mysteries, and demands no blind belief. It puts forth 
its system in a plain and simple manner. It is able to pre- 
sent its own method without in any way attacking the 
method of others. It manifests a charity that it is usual to 
call Chri .ian, b-.t which Vivekananda proves is equally the 
property of the Hindu. If this little book had nothing to 
teach but the beautiful toleration it advocates, it ..ould be 
well worth reading; but many will find in it valuable sug- 
gestions to aid in reaching the higher life. — Arena, March, 
1897. 

This work embraces a series of lectures that fully explain 
the doctrines and principles of the philosophy of the Indian 
monks, wI-j have aroused such a widespread interest in this 
country. To the reader who is seeking after the truth and 
light, this volume will be indeed welcome. It is written in 
an unusually clear style that all readers can understand. — 
Bookseller and Newsman. 

How to get at the soul and put the reins of the mind and 
the body into its hands, is the problem that Raja Yoga at- 
tempts to solve, and all those persons who practice Yoga 
are known as Yogis. Then — how to become a Yogi, how to 
rise to a high state of psychic control is what Vivekananda 
endeavors to point out in these lectures. — Literary Digest. 

A large part of the book is occupied with that method of 
attaining perfection known as Raja Yoga, and there are also 
translations of a number of aphorisms and an excellent glos- 
sary. — Living Age, Aug. sth, 1899. 

A valuable portion of the volume to students is the glos- 
sary of Sanskrit technical terms. This includes not only 
such terms as are employed in the book, but also those frc- 
jquently employed in works on the Vedanta philosophy in 
I general. — New York Times, July 22nd, 1899. 

A new edition, with an enlarged glossary, which will be 
welcomed by students of comparative religion, who arc al- 
ready familiar with the author's lectures in this country.— 
Review of Reviews, Oct., 1899. 

The methods of practical realization of the divine within 
the human are applicable to all religions, and all peoples, 
and only vary in their details to suit the idiosyncrasy of race 
and individuals.— Fw^, Washington, D. C, June 12th, 1899. 




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